War and Algorithm

War and Algorithm offers a concise but thought-provoking ensemble of texts reflecting on the emerging world of war in the age of high-speed computation and artificial intelligence. … The text is organized along a tripartite structure of understanding, law and vision, distributed among the editors in accordance with their respective specialisms. Yet the three core chapters resonate richly with each other in their engagement with some profound questions raised by the present transformation of war. * Prometheus *
This very powerful and disturbing book opens up a host of deeply problematic interconnections between humans and machines, war and climate catastrophe, formal and informal warfare, law and vision and blindness. The authors and commentators, who have coordinated their work over some considerable time, bring an exceptionally original and complementary set of approaches to their topic. To speak of ‘impact’ would be crass, but this major contribution to social theory deserves to attract a good deal of attention. -- William Outhwaite, Newcastle University
Engaging the reader in a tripartite critical conversation organized into closely-knit, yet individually rich, movements, War and Algorithm is a must-read for anyone looking for an unflinching interrogation of the urgent questions raised by the transforming relationship between technology and violence. -- Øyvind Vågnes, University of Bergen
How should we think about the rise of intelligent machines as instruments, weapons, or perhaps even agents of warfare? The authors of this vital collection insist that this is not a question that should be left to military officials, defence analysts, or humanitarian lawyers making decisions in the fog of war. By staging a conversation between philosophers, jurists, art historians, and cultural theorists, the authors attempt to make visible what we cannot yet see about the future of warfare that is emerging, to trace the material and spiritual investments that are being made to bring it about, and in so doing to humanize the implacable move to war that seems to be accelerating within our institutions and beyond our control. Part philosophical meditation, part jurisprudential speculation, part reflection on visual history, this volume makes a major contribution to reframing the urgently needed public debate about our emerging world of war. -- Anne Orford, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, Melbourne Law School, Australia
This is a remarkable book, speculative and unruly in the best possible meanings of these terms: highly informed scholars spanning the fields of philosophy, law and art history searching for new grounds of resistance in the face of weaponized algorithmic systems where artificial agents and human agents have started to bleed into each other. -- Aud Sissel Hoel, Associate Professor of Media Aesthetics at University of Oslo, Norway