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gkierulf's review
5.0
This was a deeply interesting book, as close to a riveting page turner as an academic and information-rich book can get.
First and foremost, I found the treatment of the 'algorithm' and its long history incredibly interesting and forced me to re-visit some of my thoughts and feelings about math (a subject I've never been particularly good at). Additionally, the earlier portions of the 'social history' were of particular interest and I found them more engaging and easier to grasp with my foreknowledge of the time-period and language of labour. This is as opposed to the chapters on the development of 'AI' through the 1940-60s and its related disciplinary lexicons which I had to spend some more time with.
Instead of pointing to any particular flaws, by way of critique I’ll instead offer thoughts on what I thought were more overlooked aspects of ‘AI’ in The Eye of the Master.
The first somewhat overlooked (or at least not fully fleshed out) aspect that jumped out at me is how Pasquinelli doesn't fully develop a challenge to the adoption of 'intelligence' in ‘AI’ discourse. Of course, it is mentioned, and its genealogy is traced expertly, but knowing the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of the word being adopted is not the same as a critique. That being said, it doesn't escape me that a full critique of 'intelligence' itself was outside the scope of this book's endeavour – nor was it the point.
Regardless, the text that immediately came to mind to fill this gap of an ‘intelligence’ critique was Technically Man Dwells upon This Earth by Ulysse Carrière. As Carrière puts it, "intellect does not operate with a model, only the sensible does. There is something that does not require an input, and that is the intellect. As such, the intellect lies beyond the realm of techne" (Carrière 2023, p.19). For Carrière, this challenge to the ‘intelligence’ of AI brings up "the immanent necessity of understanding Thinking as a thinking of the Beautiful” (Carrière 2023, p. v). This is to say the appropriation of the language of (and in Pasquinelli’s genealogy, a genuine belief in) ‘intelligent’ ‘AI,’ immediately leads to questions over the creative impulse beyond the more ‘social’ incapability of ‘AI’ and instead towards the transcendental act of ‘creation.’ These notions stayed so heavy in my mind while I was consuming Pasquinelli’s book because of the importance of recognizing the potential ‘threat’ of ‘AI’ poses to distinctly creative modes of labour, so that in the face of this crisis(?) "art is being tasked with the creation of the unthinkable. A new art has been made necessary" (Carrière 2023, p. 37). The crisis of creation (as opposed to a ‘creative crisis’) which ‘intelligence’ in ‘AI’ poses, while (understandably) absent from The Eye of the Master, I think remains a pressing concern for critical ‘AI’ discourse.
The other, somewhat related, aspect that I felt could have been developed further by Pasquinelli is tying into the present moment more with today’s ‘AI’ systems. It is only in the conclusion of the book where Pasquinelli turns to these more theoretical concerns which are, admittedly, outside the broader scope of his ‘social history’ (rather than a social present). Of course, Pasquinelli’s book itself is a (social) history not a contemporary account, so this is much less a critique and more a personal theory-brained nitpick. However, where the conclusion does dip into this contemporary and urgent discourse, Pasquinelli deftly sums up not only a major theme of the book, but also the discourse more broadly declaring,"the first step of technopolitics is not technological but political" (Pasquinelli 2023, p. 253).
I cannot recommend this book enough, Pasquinelli writes about a very technical subject matter concisely, and conveys a complex history with all its attendant theories, debates, and complications in a satisfying a highly readable manner. I feel better prepared to engage with concepts of and around ‘AI’ having read the book, and I am excited to potentially follow his notes into further reading on the topic.
First and foremost, I found the treatment of the 'algorithm' and its long history incredibly interesting and forced me to re-visit some of my thoughts and feelings about math (a subject I've never been particularly good at). Additionally, the earlier portions of the 'social history' were of particular interest and I found them more engaging and easier to grasp with my foreknowledge of the time-period and language of labour. This is as opposed to the chapters on the development of 'AI' through the 1940-60s and its related disciplinary lexicons which I had to spend some more time with.
Instead of pointing to any particular flaws, by way of critique I’ll instead offer thoughts on what I thought were more overlooked aspects of ‘AI’ in The Eye of the Master.
The first somewhat overlooked (or at least not fully fleshed out) aspect that jumped out at me is how Pasquinelli doesn't fully develop a challenge to the adoption of 'intelligence' in ‘AI’ discourse. Of course, it is mentioned, and its genealogy is traced expertly, but knowing the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of the word being adopted is not the same as a critique. That being said, it doesn't escape me that a full critique of 'intelligence' itself was outside the scope of this book's endeavour – nor was it the point.
Regardless, the text that immediately came to mind to fill this gap of an ‘intelligence’ critique was Technically Man Dwells upon This Earth by Ulysse Carrière. As Carrière puts it, "intellect does not operate with a model, only the sensible does. There is something that does not require an input, and that is the intellect. As such, the intellect lies beyond the realm of techne" (Carrière 2023, p.19). For Carrière, this challenge to the ‘intelligence’ of AI brings up "the immanent necessity of understanding Thinking as a thinking of the Beautiful” (Carrière 2023, p. v). This is to say the appropriation of the language of (and in Pasquinelli’s genealogy, a genuine belief in) ‘intelligent’ ‘AI,’ immediately leads to questions over the creative impulse beyond the more ‘social’ incapability of ‘AI’ and instead towards the transcendental act of ‘creation.’ These notions stayed so heavy in my mind while I was consuming Pasquinelli’s book because of the importance of recognizing the potential ‘threat’ of ‘AI’ poses to distinctly creative modes of labour, so that in the face of this crisis(?) "art is being tasked with the creation of the unthinkable. A new art has been made necessary" (Carrière 2023, p. 37). The crisis of creation (as opposed to a ‘creative crisis’) which ‘intelligence’ in ‘AI’ poses, while (understandably) absent from The Eye of the Master, I think remains a pressing concern for critical ‘AI’ discourse.
The other, somewhat related, aspect that I felt could have been developed further by Pasquinelli is tying into the present moment more with today’s ‘AI’ systems. It is only in the conclusion of the book where Pasquinelli turns to these more theoretical concerns which are, admittedly, outside the broader scope of his ‘social history’ (rather than a social present). Of course, Pasquinelli’s book itself is a (social) history not a contemporary account, so this is much less a critique and more a personal theory-brained nitpick. However, where the conclusion does dip into this contemporary and urgent discourse, Pasquinelli deftly sums up not only a major theme of the book, but also the discourse more broadly declaring,"the first step of technopolitics is not technological but political" (Pasquinelli 2023, p. 253).
I cannot recommend this book enough, Pasquinelli writes about a very technical subject matter concisely, and conveys a complex history with all its attendant theories, debates, and complications in a satisfying a highly readable manner. I feel better prepared to engage with concepts of and around ‘AI’ having read the book, and I am excited to potentially follow his notes into further reading on the topic.
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