The Machine that Ate Bad People:
The Bio-politics of Sentient Machines, Anomic Spaces, and Neo-Security Assemblages
Prof. Peter Mantello,
Ritsumeikan University, Japan
The rise of smart cities, intelligence sharing fusion centers, RFID chips,
and intrusive biometrics highlight the growing
imperatives of bio-political regimes to impose efficiencies in all facets of human existence, and, importantly,
manage uncertainty. Since 9/11, the politics of pre-emption and economy of risk have
created an increasingly porous alliance of law enforcement/security agencies, communications/tech
companies, and other corporate enterprises dedicated to constructing a multi purposed,
networked juridical and disciplinary neo-security
assemblage. Initially premised on identifying threats by data mining purportedly suspicious forms of online behavior
from search habits, financial transactions, credit card purchases, travel history and email
communications, next generation security systems have shifted their operational focus from
nescient machines that simply connect given dots from the past to becoming intelligent,
assemblages capable of integrating data from a multitude of nodes in order to foresee the
future.
The most salient feature of predictive analytic assemblages belongs to
burgeoning field of computational science
known as machine learning , where computers
learn to think for themselves by sifting
massive volumes of data to ascertain patterns and discern anomalies. For example Hitachi’s Visualization
Suite for Public Safety 4.5 suggests that the key to ‘better’ government lays in the visual and geospatial
integration of public and private fix and moving assets (Hitachi, 2015). Such developments will be amplified
through continued advances in distributed
computer systems, quantum processing, and effectively limitless data storage.
While beta versions such as Hitachi’s are now being piloted in real world
environments, the political and social implications
are far reaching and understudied. Not only are such assemblages predicated on the continued normalization
of exception, they allow risk regimes to
make the public and private distinction more elastic and in turn, threaten fundamental privacy rights by encouraging the widening
of its physical nodes. This includes deputizing
[or simply appropriating] private/commercial surveillance cameras, GPS devices, and social networks, and encouraging the
proliferation of eavesdropping tools in smart phones, web browsers, TV sets,
game consoles. The extension of juridical reach and disciplinary sight is also
augmented through the growth in consumer oriented mobile security products that encourage voluntary
buy in to the neo security assemblage, such as
the iPatriot smart phone app that networks patriotic citizens , allowing them to
report suspicious activities and persons
directly to federal agencies and transit authorities. Moreover, sentient assemblages are largely
driven by neoliberal incentives to take human resource (and the state) out of the security loop and –as the argument
goes - increase efficiency, eliminate human error and insider
threats. For citizens, they imply accepting
control as the price of safety.
And the lack of human oversight also implies an anomic gap (of sovereign authority) when deciphering the
norm from the anomaly at the point of
action, as well as the opacity of political accountability in the event
of the inevitable false positives.
This paper examines the biopolitics of securitization when data led
regimes empower sentient neo-security
assemblages as surrogate forms of sovereign authority and decision. Projecting the writings of Massumi, Agamben
and Amoore into the realm of sentient
machines, I argue that while such assemblages seek legitimacy by
offering the widely admired [if often
unproven] predictability, impartiality and objectivity of techno-
scientific solutions their ultimate goal
is merely to preempt immediate threats to the body politic by extending juridical reach and disciplinary
sight. I also explain the longer term effects—and arguably intent—of sentient neo-security
assemblages is to preserve the domains of their
masters, who will control immense existential and predictive data that
will allow them to shape public
perceptions and quell possible opposition, thereby ensuring the exception incontrovertible and infinite life.