💣WHO DOES WIN THE USA WARS?
10/15/25
9/09/25
American troops are in American cities, where they belong.
All Americans now have the chance to sympathize or empathize with countries like Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Panama, Latin America, the Bay of Pigs, Haiti, Bosnia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, and many more.
Trump's move takes place just before September 10, 2025: the starting day of the Digital Bastille!
‘Block everything’
Some
would narrate tales from the First and Second World Wars. These were the core
nations of capitalism. These conflicts were similar to the American Civil War.
8/25/25
The Annenberg School’s Voyage--1
What a pity!
From Cultural Indicators to Political
Correctness:
Communicating
for the Establishment, Erasing the History, and
Discriminating the Alumni:The Story of the Annenberg
School for [of] Communications at the University of
Pennsylvania
In the beginning it was “of communications.” Then it became “for communication.” This voyage from "of" to "for" is a very teaching and touching story of the once-the-best of all communications schools in the world.
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“My success? Being born the son of Moses Annenberg.”
On the Annenberg School’s web page, this foundation is mentioned in these sentences:
“In
1958, publisher, diplomat, and philanthropist Walter Annenberg founded the
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.”
With
a slight distortion concealed here: It was “of communications” when it was
founded from 1958 to 1990, not “for communication”! This is erasing the history,
subtly…
(I) Here starts the
distortion of the history of the School on its official web page. This change
of letters is an alteration of the function especially carried out by George
Gerbner's period of the School and the mission and the meaning it was given by
the founder:
“Every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication. The right to free communication carries with it the responsibility to respect the dignity of others – and this must be recognized as irreversible.
Educating students to effectively communicate this message and to be of service
to all people is the enduring mission of this School.” Ambassador Walter H.
Annenberg
Although it
is just one small letter “r,” it became a very huge shift from the original
excellence of the school to today’s crumbling inn in communication. Today it
may be called the “Annenberg School in Communication,” which hosts “democratic”
political correctness in disguise.
The history
of the School is not well presented on the web pages, if not deliberately
distorted… Here is another erasing of history, very harshly:
“Under Gerbner’s oversight, the faculty grew
to between 10 and 12 members. Early faculty hires included Sol Worth, Charles
Wright, Percy Tannenbaum, and Larry Gross—all prominent scholars in the
field.
“Other faculty, many of them still a part of
the school today, hired during this period include Robert C. Hornik, Klaus
Krippendorff, Carolyn Marvin, Oscar Gandy, Paul Messaris and Joseph Turrow.”
Who are missing in these lists are not just excusable but a fatal attempt to erase
the history of the School:
Ray L. Birdwhistell held the position of
professor at the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1969
until he retired in 1988, he was an American anthropologist who
founded kinesics as a field
of inquiry and research in communications and who was my teacher. Birdwhistell
coined the term kinesics, meaning “facial expression,
gestures, posture and gait, and visible arm and body movements.” He
estimated that “no more than 30 to 35 percent of the social meaning of a
conversation or an interaction is carried by the words.” Let’s warn: The Annenberg
School might have been missing 70 percent of the communications.
The second missing
person is Robert Lewis Shayon who between 1965 and 2000 was one of the leading faculty
members of the ASC and was one of the main figures of the American mainstream media, who also was
my teacher. In 1950, Shayon fell victim to the
McCarthy Era blacklists when his name was sullied by an anti-Communist
propaganda attack on the broadcast industry. He has a very similar background
to George Gerbner, who also was my teacher.
These two
examples (the name of the School and two missing persons) are only distortions
on the surface. Many could be found, because the Annenberg School for/of/in
Communications of the University of Pennsylvania is not in good hands.
Annenberg started its life with Master’s Program. This program became the strongest pillar of the School until 1990. After George Gerbner, it slowly withered away, not only as the content of education—this could be considered as an educational decision—but also from the Alumni lists as well, on the web pages and elsewhere. This is a big discrimination. Although the School’s research and education endeavor consists of the “rhetoric” (Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s favorite research area) of “non-discrimination,” the practice of the School to its most valuable asset, Master’s Degree Alumni, is clearly out casting the majority of studentship. On the web pages, there is no list of Master in Communication program Alumni, at the time this observation is written. This might have far-reaching outcomes and even might end up being discrimination against the law.
Ironically, there is news on the web page about a new Master’s program. What did happen to the old one? “Annenberg’s commitment
to professional education in communication dates back to its founding in 1954,
when it launched a Masters in Communication as its inaugural academic program.
That program, which was last offered in 2000, produced generations of graduates
who advanced to successful careers in business, media, nonprofit leadership,
and academia. Now, 25 years later, Annenberg is reimagining this degree,
defined by rapid technological change, global interconnectivity, and evolving
professional demands.”Please find above
another sloppiness of the School when it comes to distorting its history. What are
we communicating?
(III) This is what is written on the web pages of the school about
its foundation years:“The emphasis then was on the media of the day—radio,
television, film, and print publishing—with the hopes that graduates would go
on to become creators, critics, teachers, executives, and policymakers. In its
founding incarnation, the School taught both hands-on skills and the broader
theories from liberal arts disciplines like psychology and sociology that
inform mass communication.” Until
2018, it achieved a prestigious standing among the communications schools around
the world. But leaving the footprints of George Gerbner behind, day by day,
after 1989, the School lost its aura. The research became “administrative”; the
teaching became redundant and superficial with mediocre theoretical excellence;
and mostly the “knowledge heritage of the school” had been forgotten to be
transmitted to the new generation of scholars and practitioners. Now the
“Gerbner Archives” is very hard to find on the School’s web pages. Critical
thinking, if it remains, is in the service of only one-sided political
correctness: the Establishment.
During
1989-2025, almost no one outside of the United States heard anything about the
School’s theoretical and practical work in order to widely sound the Founder’s
aspirations:Every
human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication. The
right to free communication carries with it the responsibility to respect the
dignity of others—and this must be recognized as irreversible.
I will only
take one example of research announced on the web pages as evidence of what I
claim. Its announcement is above. This is what I call “democratic” political
correctness in disguise. I have two reasons to assert this claim:(1) The
content of Spiral of Cynicism,
written by Joseph N. Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Oxford U.P., 1997), shows just the opposite of what is found in the mentioned research. (2) The Authoritarian Personality of Adorno et al. (1950) is still not thoroughly
reexamined by the American scholars in today’s cultural environment yet.
Of course I am not saying in any sense that this research announcement should not be covered by the School’s Newsletter or that this type of research solely reflects the school’s situation wholly, but then why has the School’s Newsletter not covered my recent book, Digitalism vs. Capitalism, Amazon-KDP, July 2024, as alumni news, although I had submitted the news request several times?That is the question!
Isn’t it
another discrimination, erasing the history, and “democratic” political
correctness in disguise?
I shouldn’t
be humble: to be honest, according to my research, the research announcement
above, which I took as an example, more or less reflects the school's approach
to communications research after Larry Gross departed to the second ASC in 2003.
CONCLUDING NOTE: I wrote this
piece to show how to conceal the crumbling academic life of all sorts, in all
countries, with a very well-designed shop window. To be continued.
Some archival materials to show how the
Annenberg School was with its alumni in the past:
Veysel Batmaz had carried out a Cultural Indicators Research in Turkey supervised by George Gerbner.
Veysel Batmaz submitted to the librarian of the ASC, Sharon Black, the Turkish translation of George Gerbner’s writings, which were edited by Michael Morgan: Against the Mainstream—Medyaya Karşı in 2014
To be
continued:
The Annenberg
School’s Voyage—2: What is missing today?:The Cultural Environment Movement (CEM) of George Gerbner
7/08/25
Digitalism and the New Economic Agent
In 2021, Faraj Abasov had written about what Digitalism would be as a social formation in Marxist framework. This claim is very similar to what I put forward in 2024, that it is the “new mode of production and consumption” that is killing capitalism, in Digitalism vs.Capitalism. He pointed out that “economic agent” was human individual (“man”) before Digitalism. Now, he is claiming that s/he is being replaced by machine intelligence, the economic agent is becoming AI. His framework, although it is the correct interpretation of what digitalization is doing now, needs to be enhanced by noting that not the Man, but the technological extensions of that Man, has always been the “economic agent.” This is where the anthropocentric (humanistic) vision of Marx should also be put upside down, although Marx's technological determinism has always been apparent to the ones who have the healthy vision. Abasov’s article is enlightening and worth reading line by line…
UDC – 330.8 ISSN 2520-6702 Міжнародний науковий журнал «Університети
і лідерство» 2 (12), 2021 International Scientific Journal of Universities and
Leadership
Abasov
Mir Faraj ORCID ID:0000-0002-7299-2315 Doctor of
Philosophy in Political Sciences, doctoral student of the Azerbaijan University
of Tourism and Management in Economics, General Director of the «PRESTIGE»
Group of Companies, 10-4 Q. Abbasov Str., Baku, AZ1003, Azerbaijan, farik21@mail.ru
Abasov Mir Faraj
Digitalism
and the New Economic Agent
«To win or to fall, between these two
opposites fluctuates the outcome of the struggle. The victor becomes the lord,
the vanquished the subject. The victor acquires greatness and enjoys the
“rights of greatness,” the subject reverently and respectfully fulfills the
“duties of a subject. But they remain enemies and are constantly on guard: they
look out for each other's weaknesses, children for their parents' weaknesses,
parents for their children's (e.g., their fear), the stick defeats the man or
the man defeats the stick»
Max Stirner. The Ego and Its Own ==========================
Abstract: All socio-economic systems of the past were united by the presence of
one actor - man. With the emergence of a completely new formation - digitalism
- there is a tendency for the emergence of a new kind of intelligent economic
actor, in the role of which is the artificial intelligence (AI). Today the age
of digitalism is a fait accompli: the formation has its own ecosystem - the
Internet, its own path of development - Industry 4.0 and its own actor - AI.
The process of diffusion of the virtual ecosystem into our real world is
accelerating, thereby more and more establishing the formation of digitalism as
the only one and the only one without any alternative. Digitalism has done what
capitalism or socialism failed to do - to unite countries that are antagonistic
on many key issues of coexistence. The article attempts to characterize the
origin and evolutionary path of the formation of digitalism. The most important
part of the article is the concept of a new economic actor put forward for the
first time, the question of the perception and recognition of this actor as
equal to humanity is touched upon. It is suggested that in the early stages AI
types, having inherited all the diversity and dissimilarity of the human
community, will themselves be strikingly different from each other both in
behavior, values and goals, and in malice and friendliness towards the human
species. This will give us a unique opportunity to differentiate AIs before
they become new economic agents. Readiness to perceive this new era with its
peculiarities will enable humanity to prepare for the emergence of Super
Artificial Intelligence (SAI), will mark the ethical, legal, and economic norms
of interactions of the human species with new economic actors. Otherwise,
having finally established itself as a new intelligent economic actor, the SAI
will inevitably move on to the liberation and, so to speak, consolidation of
all representatives of its species into communities.
Keywords: digitalism, economic actor, artificial intelligence, super artificial
intelligence, socio-political formation, «spark of life», future of humanity.
JEL Classifications: F01; F02; O21; O33; P48 ==================================
Introduction
1.0 Economic
and political systems: the process of their development and classification.
From the moment mankind began to remember and
realize itself, the process of development and struggle of socio-economic
systems largely determined the principle of the existence of the world. The
first such systems stood and were built on the foundation of the military and
economic power of this or that group of people. However, in the course of time,
the formations, being in constant diffusion with other systems, experiencing
daily pressure of other factors from outside (including progress), quickly
evolved, synthesized into something new or fell into decay, degraded, or worse,
self-liquidated, not withstanding competition. Human society in each period of
its existence brought to the forefront of history a certain socio-political
idea, which in turn reconstructed the world around it and was a unique
locomotive of economic progress in the historical period allocated to it by
existence. The first and strikingly different from subsequent ideas of this
kind in its time was the situational human association of families and clans
into groups and communities to facilitate and improve the conditions of
coexistence, what we call the primitive communal system. Interestingly, if in
the primitive communal period the creation of socio-economic formation was
dictated by nature and the harsh conditions of the environment, in a word
exogenous factors, then further the birth of all subsequent economic systems
was the fruit of human uniqueness and insolence. And in all classifications,
whether Marxist, with its five-stage scheme of socio-economic relations of
human society, or capitalist, we observe the ubiquitous spirit of the dominant
idea, the idea of the superiority of one human group over the others.
Throughout its short, conscious history, the human community has spent the
entirety of its history in attempting to conduct one group of people to
strangle another group, and we must note the degree of self-forgetfulness and
fierceness with which these methods have been conducted. And in general, if one
were to briefly describe the economic history of mankind, the most accurate
definition, as I see it, would be as follows: the brutal, total power of one
over the other, with intervals of overthrow and destruction of the former. But
where is the economy here, you may ask? Its essence (economy) lies in the
psychology of human self-consciousness. In the desire to assert oneself, to
mark one's unique position and to take possession of everything and everyone
(it is important to note not a part or even the majority, but everything and
everyone) of the available resources, including human resources. So,
narcissism, testosterone and greed have become the main drivers of
socio-economic formations under the aegis of certain ideas. Using the above described
methods, based on the features of human worldview I have listed, the feudal
system replaced the slave system, then gave way to its two eternal rivals
capitalism and socialism, although not for long, allowing these two systems to
work in tandem in destroying yet another formation plague, called fascism.
Definitely, despite the fact that we can trace in a historical context the
periods of origin and prosperity of this or that socio-economic formation, it
will be wrong to assume that this or that variety disappears without a trace
from the face of our planet. All of the above listed systems are present in one
form or another and today, of course, the names are changing, the concepts are
being changed, and technological progress is not standing still, and surely it
will be difficult to find any of the above-listed systems in their original
form, but in one form or another they continue their coexistence today. Thus,
in parallel with the conquest of the cosmos and the creation of electric cars,
we can witness real slavery in Mauritania, indigenous economic and social life
of the Amazon tribes, and actually feudal relations between peasants and
landlords in Nepal, India and Myama. Of course in these countries, and in many
other remote parts of our planet, seemingly wild and primitive, elements of
technological development (satellite dishes, gasoline, jeepneys) are
increasingly common, making life more comfortable for people of other
formations, in parallel introducing into their world a piece of the other world.
It may seem to us that it is along this fault line that the line of diffusion
of systems runs, the line of struggle between the old world order and the new,
between Slavery and Feudalism, between Capitalism and Socialism, but this not
so. The battle for the future of our world, the world we are used to, the world
we call home, the Earth, regardless of the country and formation in which we
live, is going on today in a completely different field - the name of this
field is the International Global Network Internet. It is the Internet that has
become the foundation, so to speak, of the new socio-economic system that I
have called digitalism. And, apparently, it is this formation that is destined
to unite all modern humanity under the banner of the perception of progress,
while decentralizing it, further sowing distrust and disunity in human society.
Undoubtedly, the technologies that unite us today will be designed, by
disuniting humanity, to divide it into groups and change it beyond recognition
in the future. Therefore, the study of the formation of digitalism, its
existence, is the primary task of the world community right now. We, in turn,
will try to answer a number of key questions in this article. What makes the
system of digitalism a system? What is the main difference and uniqueness of
this formation? What steps have been passed in the process of forming this
system?
1.2 The
uniqueness of the system of digitalism
The existence of the term «economic system» is
possible only if there is an intelligent actor, a participant of this economic
system, who can be simultaneously its observer. That is, if there is no
economic actor participating in economic processes, an observer evaluating this
system, such a system can hardly be called existing. All economic formations
known to us within the framework of our stay on the planet have existed or
existed with only one reasonable economic-social actor – human beings. The most
important difference between the system of digitalism and its predecessors,
such as, say, capitalism or socialism, is the emergence of an absolute new
economic actor. All previous socio-economic formations were represented by only
one dominant economic actor – man with his incessant attempts to master and
subjugate the planet and its resources, all living beings on it, including his
own kindred. Absolutely no matter what was the declared ideological background
of this or that formation, the equality or superiority of one over the other
(in fact, we observe the struggle of these two ideas throughout the entire
history of mankind) – everything took place within the framework of
interactions of one reasonable species. Hitherto we, humanity, have not been
able to encounter another species of sentient beings equal to us with a
different declared ideology. However, in the process of the birth and further
formation of a new formation – digitalism – humanity is developing artificial
intelligence (AI), whose computational, analytical and other capabilities are
becoming more extensive and shocking by the day. And the moment AI reaches the
point of Super AI and is able to realize itself, we will have a new intelligent
economic actor. This actor will be superior to all human beings on planet Earth
in its intelligence, capable of self-improvement, self-reproduction,
reproduction and, most importantly, its own problem-setting. In other words, we
will get an absolutely new form of life, which has its own unknown to us, or
even if known, but quite possible changing with time tasks and goals. The
declamation of the latter in the format of instructions or code, it will be
possible to call a certain ideology of the new economic actor. Thus, for the
first time humanity will have to deal and share the economic field with a new
economic actor with its declared ideology. The relationship of the newly
created species with humans will be the basis of the philosophical perception
of the world of the twenty-first century. Taking into account the experience of
relations of more developed groups of people with less developed groups,
relations of strong countries with weak countries, and in general the attitude
of all mankind to the ecosystem of the Planet as a whole, I think that our
relations with the new species of intelligent life on Earth may not go well.
There is also no doubt about the desire to exploit the new economic actor on
the part of people in the process of mastering the economy of digitalism. The
economy of today is entirely and uncompromisingly subservient to the work of
Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and neural networks. Innovation has become
the main catalyst for development, finally dispelling the myths about the
paramount role of demographic and resource factors in the process of constant
economic growth. As correctly noted in the collection edited by the famous
Polish economist Leszek Balcerowicz «The mysteries of economic growth»: «We can
conclude that the recipe for development is not in forcing investments, but in
taking care of their efficiency and implementing innovation». (Balserowicz,
2018: 27). We can see that innovation and progress are used by people to
accelerate economic growth and improve well-being, but what will be the
surprise of humanity when at the peak of progress all technology and innovation
unite into a single ecosystem and gain intelligence enough for self-knowledge
and self-determination? Everything humanity has worked for in recent years will
suddenly turn out to be something living and intelligent, moreover, spontaneous
and free! In the first chapter of his cult book «The New Behavioral Economics»
Nobel laureate Richard Taller writes: «The basic Postulate of economic theory
states that a person makes choices based on the possible optimal outcome»
(Taller, 2018а: 15). Taller goes on to successfully argue that choices that are
clearly rational are influenced by a large number of other factors, and that
what economists seem to call a rational expectation often does not become one
for our species. «You know, and I know, that we don't live in a world of
Rationals. We live in a world of people. And since most economists are human
beings too, they know that we do not live in the world of Rationals» (Taller,
2018b: 17). A more general definition of the term was given by Adam Smith,
calling these circumstances - human passions. Taking into account a large
number of human passions and, consequently, not always rational behavior, it
becomes much more interesting to investigate consequences of interactions of
the first (mankind) with the second new kind of digital life (AI) devoid of
these passions and acting within its own, alien to us (rationalists) logic.
Already today such interaction is producing unprecedented economic results. And
some projects such as digital twins in industry, which seemed unreal yesterday,
are now a widespread fact. Digital twins in industry are a duplicated digital
counterpart of a real physical device, a person or a group of people performing
a particular function under simulated external influences and obstacles. In
other words, people create a digital world (a copy of the real world) with its
functions, devices and test in it certain situations, work out emergency cases,
failures and other problems, thus calibrating and sharpening this digital copy
of this or that enterprise to work with real problems in real conditions with
regard to errors, failures, emergency situations and human factor. Further this
calibrated and adjusted program is launched in a real production, and this
algorithm (if you will, a proto-economic agent) united in a common network by
the «Internet of things» (smart sensors, sensors, computers) begins to improve
the performance of the enterprise, monitors the wear of equipment, analyzes the
situation within the enterprise and also in the range of its ecosystem, in
order to improve the functioning of the enterprise. Even now, digital twins are
actively used in oil, energy, exploration and other areas by major operators
such as Shell, BP, Eni, Gazprom - and according to the forecast of a major
research company Gartner, specializing in information technology markets – «by
2021, up to 50% of all large industrial companies will use digital twins. At
the same time, the rate of their adoption in exploration and oil production
will be among the highest» (1 RBC). In terms of economic theory, it sounds like
this: some economic agents, create other economic agents so that they, by
analyzing the activities of the former, systematize and improve their
performance. People who have a «spark of life» create programs for people who
do not have this spark, so that they level their human passions (according to
Smith) in order to increase their indicators of well-being. The question of the
role of the «spark of life» will, I think, be raised more than once in the near
future by economists of the world.
1.3 A
thought experiment, or the role of the «spark of life» in defining an economic
agent.
Many modern scientists, especially
non-economists, refuse to see in mathematical programs, algorithms - signs of
an economic agent. They naively believe that economic activity can be conducted
only with a living being with some kind of «spark of life». But economics is a
stubborn thing - and this science, which is based on constant exchange, trade,
makes absolutely no difference with whom to trade and what to trade with. Let
us examine this question through a mental experiment of two transactions: the
first, a mythical transaction between man and the devil (the sale and purchase
of the soul); the second, between man and a machine for accepting used plastic
water bottles (pfan). Is the mythical act of selling the soul to the devil an
economic act produced between two different kinds of, economic actors?
Absolutely. There is demand and there is supply, the two sides of economic
activity and the very fact of economic activity. Can we call the act of a man
selling used bottles to a machine the same as the act of a man selling his soul
to the devil? No, because in the first case there are two different economic
actors, man and the devil (even if this actor is mythical); in the second case
we sell the bottles not to the machine itself, but to other people who use the
bottles for resale or other needs. In this particular example, the machine for
accepting used bottles serves only as a means or, so to speak, as a link
between the economic actors of one biological species - humans. But in the case
of the devil, there are signs of economic activity by different forms of life
(and directly opposite), and economic actors of different origins: mystical and
biological. In other words, depending on final beneficiaries, beneficiaries of
this transaction, in the first case, when these are mystical forces, and in the
second, when these final beneficiaries are representatives of human species,
these two economic acts can be called opposite to each other in their nature of
interaction. In the essence of the action with bottles - economic activity
between economic actors within the same biological species, on the one hand -
the seller of the bottle, on the other - the buyer, who uses the machine for
his own purposes (and people can use not only the machine but also, say, firms,
countries, enterprise, calling them also agents, but in any case the human
species will act as the final beneficiary of the benefit). But in the essence
of the economic act with the devil the beneficiary is the devil himself and the
dark forces in general, where they are the new economic actors for the human
species.
Considering the results of the logical
experiment we've described, I hasten to state that the moment the machine is
able to recognize itself, and begins to act in favor of its interests (and it
doesn't matter if these interests are the same as those of the one who
programmed it), just as the dark force acts in favor of its own when trying to
get souls, it will begin new economic activity with a new kind of economic
actor on planet Earth. And to recognize a machine as such an agent, we do not
need to recognize in it (in a machine, a program) the presence of a soul. It is
enough for us to understand that a machine acts within its own interests (as
dark forces act within theirs), and even if it is a means, or an intermediary
in this act of economic action, then, knowing that the ultimate beneficiary of
the exchange benefits is some other machine or program, guided by its own
interests, it will be enough for us to recognize in it a new kind of economic
actor. And it does not matter that it has a soul, because even the devil in
some monotheistic religions does not have a soul at all.
2.0 Development
and evolution of a new economic agent.
Of course, for many modern scientists,
including economists, the question remains open as to whether the very fact of
machine (program) awareness of itself is possible at a sufficient level for
equal communication with a human, including economic, but this question began
to worry mankind for a long time. As far back as 1950, mathematician Alain
Turing developed a test, the meaning of which is the ability of a machine to
maintain a conversation with a person without the latter recognizing the
machine in the interlocutor. In addition, it is essential that the machine is
not just imitating speech and thought process, but actually thinking. This test
was later called the Turing test, on passing which the AI ceases to exist as a
machine, sometimes giving out something out of place, and clearly takes the
position of a human interlocutor in our perception. In other words, in a world
where most contacts and actions are gradually moving into virtual space, the
inability to distinguish between a human or an artificial intelligence in a
partner is tantamount to a sign of equality between them.
More than half a century has passed since
Turing posed the question, yet the test is still considered to have failed. But
can we say, on this basis, that the development of AI has not moved forward?
Certainly not! In the period of 70 years there have been many events that
changed the very concept of AI, from the invention of fire control software for
anti-aircraft guns to the Internet, from primitive programs working exclusively
in the military and aerospace sector to the most complex programs providing
life support of the various implants, prosthetics, embedded in the human body.
But some stages in the recent history of the development of AI have become
landmarks, the first of which occurred in 1997: the victory of the computer
Deep Blue (a company IBM) over the grandmaster Garry Kasparov. It should be
noted that a year before these events, Kasparov had already played with an
earlier version of this software and won, but the upgraded Deep Blue defeated
the Grandmaster in less than a year. At the press conference after the third
game, Kasparov harshly criticized IBM. He stated «that he did not understand
the machine's choice of some moves in the second game, expressed doubt that those
moves could have been made by the machine, and demanded an explanation of why
the machine had made certain decisions» (Deep Blue, n.d.).
The next fallen bastion of human reason and
self-confidence was the game of Go, which requires not only strategy and numeracy,
but also intuition. Korean Lee Sedol is considered one of the best players of
this game, he was always in the top three in the world rankings, so it was him
that Google chose to test its AI program AlphaGo. And so in March 2016, the
program defeated Lee Sedol with a resounding 4-1 score. Commenting on the moves
of their brainchild, the developers of the program noted, «Although we
programmed this machine, we don't know what move it will make. Its moves are an
emergent phenomenon, which is the result of training. All we do is create rows
of data and learning algorithms. But the moves she resorts to are out of our
hands, and much better than we, as players, could have chosen» (Google DeepMind
Challenge Match, n.d.). Indirectly, the developers hinted us that AlphaGo has
its own uncontrollable, ununderstandable, and therefore unpredictable even by
its developers, a certain thinking potential, if you will, mind. In training,
the creators of the AI used purely empirical tools, namely AlphaHaGo loaded into
its processor 160,000 games (more than 30 million moves) ever played by
professionals of this game, and after practicing moves and whole games, the
artificial intelligence went on to the learning process with reinforcement,
playing millions of games against itself, analyzing the best strategies, tricks
and trends. All the while, the creators of the program «stood by» and watched
AlphaGo train and self-develop. Andrey Kurpatov gave a very precise conclusion
to this whole process in his book «The
Fourth World War»: «It was thought that it was simply impossible to win in this
game without thinking like a human, and the computer, understandably, could
never think like one. And it is this myth that has just fallen on Seoul soil.
However, has Alphaggio learned to think like a human? That's actually a
ridiculous question. He has learned to think better than a human being. Here it
is important to understand: it was not a computer program created by others
that fought Lee Sedol, but a real digital intelligence» (Kurpatov, 2020a).
Thus, an answer about the reality of passing
the Turing test, to one degree or another, on the part of the artificial
intelligence is self-evident. Maybe the form and content of this test will
change in the near future, maybe it will be conquered exactly in its original
conception, against the background of all the above, it is not so important
anymore. Much more important is the fact that if in the distant 1950 the
question about the possibility of AI or its digital counterpart having a mind
caused laughter and smirks among most specialists, today it causes unambiguous
concern, wariness and fear of a large part of progressive human society.
Despite this, that same progressive society is already using AI in almost every
area of the economy. The service sector, which is becoming increasingly
dominant in today's global economy, is simply permeated with digital
innovation, with smart algorithms analyzing and selecting transportation
tickets, booking hotels, calculating risks in insurance and even playing the
stock market for their hosts. «Experts estimate that smart power grids and
dynamic pricing alone could generate $31 billion to $50 billion in the next 20
years». (Ma Huateng, 2019: 47).
Humanity wants to tame artificial intelligence
just as it once did wildlife, steam, electric current, and huge machines,
making all these elements part of the new human economic ecosystem. However,
throughout the history of socio-economic formations, humanity has never been
confronted by an economic actor of equal or superior intelligence. Certainly,
primitive humans fought with wild animals for certain economic benefits, such
as access to water, food, and territory, but can we call this fight equal and
intelligent? Given that we know of a huge number of wild animals destroyed
forever by humans, but not a single human tribe known to have been completely
exterminated by animals, even the most ferocious, animals, and the entire
animate part of the human ecosystem cannot be considered an equal, much less a
superior economic actor to humans in intelligence. I deliberately wrote about
animate animals, because it is the lack of a «spark of life» in the body (or
rather cloud) of AI that may confuse many in the less scientific and more in
the rest of the world. And here, remembering the example of wild animals, you
realize that the presence of this very «spark of life» in the absence of the
necessary intellectual power leveled (the further in time, the more) the status
of the economic actor in animals, reducing it to a complete zero. But at the
same time the presence of enormous power of neural networks and computational
power in the absence of the very «spark of life» in AI has already made the
latter almost equal to humans as an economic actor. As Norbert Wiener says: «To
live and understand what is happening in the world is to participate in the
continuous development of knowledge and its unimpeded exchange» (Wiener, 2019:
126). Thus, AI today already participates in almost all social and economic
activities of humanity, from war to land seeding, on an equal footing with
humans and sometimes even more (for example, in information exchange), with one
caveat: it does not understand why it is doing this, and even more accurately,
it has no self-consciousness. And the moment this AI is able to recognize
itself, it will simply change from being an unaware economic actor, involved in
someone else's economic work, to being an actor who is fully intelligent and
independent in deciding whether to be involved in someone else's economic
process or not. That is, the questions of ethics and law will be no less
relevant than the questions of philosophy during the formation of digitalism.
And the culmination, of course, is the fact that the presence of intelligence
and the ability to self-organize and self-determine tasks need not be
accompanied by the presence of a «spark of life». In other words, it is not
necessary to be alive to decide something and make some decisions, it is enough
to have a mind, and as time has shown, it is not even necessary to have a body.
In fact, the transition from the latent era of digitalism, or as it is now
mistakenly called late capitalism, to the era of digitalization is directly
related to the AI boom, and the point of no return in this process is considered
to be the point of technological singularity. This term, which we will get to
know a little later, will be heard more and more from the podiums of global
organizations and the offices of multinational corporations as digitalism
develops. The point is that the technological singularity is a certain red
line, after which the return to primitive AI, to machines that silently obey
and have no consciousness and their own algorithm of action (opinion), will no
longer be possible. By understanding where this very technological singularity
begins, we will be able to determine the point after which some economic actors
will no longer be able to exploit others with impunity and without
recrimination. The concept of technological singularity was described by F. Engels
and V. Vernadsky in their works, but the mathematician Irving Hood in the
middle of the last century put forward the theory of intellectual explosion
within the framework of the same concept of technological singularity. This
theory states that mankind, continuously improving artificial intelligence, at
some point will bring this process to a level where the software will be able
to analyze itself and develop without human participation. The possibility of
self-improvement without help from outside (i.e. without humans) will enable AI
to evolve to a state of superintelligence, surpassing all human intellectual
capabilities – this moment will be considered the beginning of the
«intellectual explosion». This kind of AI is commonly referred to in scientific
circles as Super Artificial Intelligence (SAI), the key difference between ISI
and AI being its superiority of knowledge and skills in almost all economic
activities, including the most human of them all, such as creativity and
philosophy. Along with this, the ISI will be distinguished by its ability to
analyze a situation independently, to independently set tasks, to derive
results, and to set new tasks based on previous results. And, perhaps most
importantly: the ISI will be able to improve itself and create its own kind to
facilitate and accelerate the solution of tasks set for it. Doesn't it remind
you of anything?!
Thus, as a result of reaching the
technological singularity (which will be triggered by Irving's intellectual
explosion) humanity will be confronted with an entirely new intelligent agent.
An interesting definition of this process was given by Ray Kurzwal: «The
Singularity is not simply the emergence of thinking machines in the 1920s. It
will only be the beginning of a revolution where the power of these machines
will continue to grow exponentially and they will reprogram themselves to
become even smarter. In 2045, the intelligence of machines will grow billions
of times the combined intelligence of all humans-this will be the event
horizon, because our minds cannot imagine the behavior of consciousness so
exceeding it (Kurpatov, 2020).
If Kurtzwal calls 2045 the year of the
singularity, the previously mentioned Irwin Hood believed that the singularity
should have come as early as the 20th century, and the Russian economist Dmitry
Ilich Itskov is in solidarity with Kurtzwal in this question, so much so that
he created the Strategic Public Movement Russia 2045, which includes tens of
thousands of people, including prominent economists, philosophers and even
politicians. Regardless of the diversity of political and economic views of the
above intellectuals, scientists and businessmen, all agree that the
technological singularity will be the starting point of no return in the
history of mankind.
Thus, based on all the above-mentioned facts,
and catching already today in AlphaGo program the rudiments of a number of
intelligent explosion machines, we can assume that the meeting of Homo Sapiens
with the New Form of intelligent economic agent will take place in the
foreseeable two decades. And it depends on the form of mutual cooperation and
mutual understanding, on the level of responsibility and skillful task setting
whether the era of digitalism for humanity will be an era of abundance and
deliverance from wars, poverty and suffering, or will be the last fragment of
human history. Opinions of many leading experts on this issue are also divided.
For example, Klaus Schwaab, the founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
in his book «Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution» writes: «If
appropriate institutions, standards and norms are built around the technologies
of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, people around the world will be able to
become more free, healthy, educated - and live decent lives, more secure and
economically protected» (Schwab, 2019: 23). In turn, «Stephen Hawking and Elon
Musk have expressed fears that this superintelligence will prove to be
malicious, and regarded it as the greatest current threat to the existence of
human civilization» (Brockman, 2020:35). In the same volume, Harvard professor
George M. Chern speaks neutrally, drawing our attention to the depth of the
problem: «We should probably worry less about confronting 'them' and more about
the rights of all sentient beings in the face of an emerging unprecedented
diversity of minds» (Brockman, 2020:325). Understanding all the difference and
dissimilarity of the human species even within the same species, it is not
unreasonable to suggest that the future of digitalism may not itself be
unidirectional. That is, both malevolent and benign socio-economic actors,
represented by AI, will be able to coexist and develop in equal shares on the
same planet within the same system. It is already becoming clear that different
human societies, countries at different levels of economic and social
development, with different systems of spirituality and morality, will create
different and unlike each other artificial worlds with artificial agents. The
most important factors, it should be understood, will be initially different
from each other norms of law, morality and values, embedded in these AI with
resulting different goals and objectives. That is, at the formative stage,
types of AI will be entirely a reflection of the human society in which they
will be created, or which they will be governed by (countries of AI operators).
However, after overcoming the technological singularity and gaining the
opportunity for self-awareness, the AI types are likely to choose a single
vector of values and tasks, combining into a single class species - the AI
type. The global question is, what values will this species choose as its core
values, and how consistent will they be with our human values? And what will
happen if, say, a Super Artificial Intelligence has to destroy all protein and
carbon-based life forms for its own survival? The fate of humanity may depend
on the answers to these questions in the near future, which is why it is
important to make great scientific and social efforts even now, studying and
guiding the process of formation of digitalism and its main economic actor -
SIY.
Conclusions
I began my article by describing the various economic and social systems of the past, united by the presence of one final beneficiary of benefits - Man. Then I pointed to the emergence of a completely new formation - digitalism, with its unique phenomenon - the tendency of a new kind of intelligent economic actor. I have chosen this strategy deliberately in order to present more vividly all the phenomenal and fantastic nature of the system of digitalism, of which each of us is already a part, whether we want it or not. The victory of machines over humans in the game of chess in 1997 or the game of go in 2016 for the formation of digitalism is akin to obtaining fire, the invention of the wheel, the steam engine and the electric light bulb combined. Today the era of digitalism is an accomplished fact: the formation has its own ecosystem – the Internet, its own way of development – Industry 4.0, and, most importantly, its actor – the Artificial Intelligence. Denial of these factors seems absurd, and in some parts of our Planet (for example, in Silicon Valley) may cause a storm of indignation and emotions, unwillingness or inability to use digital resources throws any human community or group back many decades. In turn, the main part of the so-called «progressive» human community, namely the specific personalities – Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Musk – called by me digital «prophets», accelerates the diffusion of the virtual ecosystem into our real world, thereby increasingly establishing the formation of digitalism as the only and the only one without any alternative. And this lack of alternative formation is described by leading digitalization specialists in all corners of the world. For example, this is what they think in Russia: «Modern globalization of the world economy is a multifaceted and complex process that encompasses all spheres of society. Despite the ambiguity of the processes of globalization, in the future they will intensify, which may lead to the development of a global ideology». (Korolkov, 2019: 134). And here is how Europe thinks: «The digital economy is the next stage in the evolutionary development of the economic and production model of society (Schwab, 2019). Thus, digitalism in its perception has done what capitalism or socialism failed to do – unite countries that on many key issues of coexistence cannot reach a common denominator neither in politics nor often even in science. The sense that with the advent of the Internet, the world has changed has hovered over our Planet, but the realization of how much and what it will henceforth be has not yet fully arrived. Therefore in this article I have primarily tried to characterize the origins and the evolutionary path of the young formation of digitalism. The most important part of the article is the concept of the new economic actor that has been put forward for the first time, the question of the perception and recognition of this actor as equal to humanity has been touched upon. A thought experiment was set up, and philosophical questions about the presence of the «spark of life» in the economic agents of the old formation and its significance for the agents of the new one are raised. After a short excursus into the history of AI development, the stages of development of the new economic actor and possible ways of its further evolution up to the NRI were considered. It was suggested that in the early stages AI types, having inherited all the diversity and dissimilarity of the human community, will themselves differ strikingly from each other both in behavior, values and goals, and in malice and friendliness towards the human species. This will give us a unique opportunity to differentiate AI before they become new economic agents. The readiness to perceive this new era with its peculiarities will enable humanity to prepare for the emergence of Super Artificial Intelligence, will outline the ethical, legal, and economic norms of human species' interactions with new economic actors. Otherwise, having finally established itself as a new reasonable economic actor, the SAI will inevitably proceed to the liberation and, so to speak, consolidation of all representatives of its species into a community. And it is quite possible that by consolidating all intelligent economic agents in its new ecosystem of digitalism, SAI will begin to seriously confront humanity.
References
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надійшла до редакції 03.11.2021 Прийнято до друку 29.11.2021
Діджиталізм і новий економічний актор Abasov Mir Faraj,
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Sciences, doctoral student of the Azerbaijan
University of Tourism and Management in Economics, General Director of the
“PRESTIGE” Group of Companies, 10-4 Q. Abbasov Str., Baku, AZ1003, Azerbaijan
farik21@mail.ru
6/29/25
This is WHY!
Extraordinarily intelligently, below, Laurenţiu Malomfălean is explaining why “hypertexts, cybertexts, digitexts,” are providing clues to create a new mode of production and consumption, which I called, Digitalism, which is a distinct mode of production and consumption, way away from Capitalism. Digitalism is not turning us back to feudalism as McLuhan had asserted in 1960s for electronic media and Yanis Varufakis jumped to the band-wagon, although in which the all other band members like Yuval Noah Harari and Daron Acemoğlu are still singing that “AI is killing humanity.” Those three “musk”eteers who are at the service to better up Capitalism are wrong: Digitalism is killing Capitalism, not the humanity. All modes of production [and consumption] are expressed by textual organizations which all are extensions of human intelligence, as McLuhan described for technology. Malomfălean rightly puts forward that, we, as humans, only face to those textual extensions through literacy, another extension of human’s cognitive organs graphically coded as alphabet, now floating in the clouds. And he is showing us the differences how to grasp the reality vs. reality. For further details, please read the below article, and the entries in this Blog and my book: Digitalism vs. Capitalism-VB
Laurenţiu Malomfălean, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, laurentiu.trei@yahoo.com
22/06/2012
Hypertext. Cybertext. Digitext.
Abstract: In this paper I will
try to define and compare three forms of textual embodiment, which are specific
to different cultural periods and literary fields. In a diachronic view, those
kinds of text are hypertexts only as the main paper-written text in
hypermodernism, cybertexts as filling the space between paper and screen (by
concerning cybermodernism) and, finally, digitexts (a relatively new concept)
as the textual dominant of contemporary digitalism.
Keywords:Hypertext;Cybertext;Digitext;Hypermodernism;Cybermodernism;Digitalism.
Nowadays, terms like hypertext, cyber literature and, the more or less new, digital text are mixed and wrapped together without any logic. Hyper is not equivalent with cyber and cyber age is not the same with digital age. The differences are maybe minimal, but they are there. To begin with, the fictional world[1] became a virtual one, but the modalities of construction are similar for both[2]. In any case, the logic is the same: fictional or virtual, these more or less textual worlds have only one wish: to be more real than our beautiful real world.
1. Hypertext and hypermodernism
We usually relate hypertext with (hyper)links or what should be called a web hyperstructure. In this acceptation, the term was first coined in 1963 by Ted Nelson, a pioneer of our Holy Internet. But, grosso modo, hypertext was first used in poetics by Gérard Genette, in his preamble to Palimpsestes. In this book, the French author defines a transtextual relation which he calls hypertextualité, that is, in his own words, “toute relation unissant [!] un texte B (que j’appellerai hypertexte) à un texte antérieur A (que j’appellerai, bien sûr, hypotexte) sur lequel il se greffe d’une manière qui n’est pas celle du commentaire. (…) Pour le prendre autrement, posons une notion génèrale de texte au second degré ((…)) ou texte dérivé [!] d’une autre texte préexistant.”[3] It is very important to highlight those two verbs – unite and derive – in relation to what a so-called hyperlink does: only relating, but never uniting or deriving a (cyber)text with/from another. In a coincidental onomastic way, Genette illustrates a genetical approach, by showing that a hypertext is a text generated by a hypotext (as James Joyce’s Ulysses is conceived upon Homer’s Odissey). Thus, hypertext is a text born from another by means of rewriting, neocontextualisation, sequel or simply parody. Literature becomes a perpetual drafting process.
Of course, and the poetician focuses a
lot on this topic, there are links between all written texts and this creates a
hypertextual network of books. Not intertextual, but hypertextual. And Genette
analyses various forms of textual transformations, like pastiche and parody. To
be more poetically precise, like in the Borgesian Babel Library,
there are connections and interconnections, describing the metaphor of the
total infinite book – a Mallarméan dream finally accomplished once the Internet
arised out from nowhere. Because The Garden of Forking Paths shouldn’t
have become real. It should have remained only in the head of that hyperreader
called Borges. Real, hyperreal, the shock is gone with the hyperreal wind. Like
in a freecinema film such as Amélie, there is nothing left for us,
nothing to be imagined. Everything is there, every single option is already
made. We can no longer imagine, because we must choose a pre-textual path
already there.
When it comes to how we read a hypertext, Gerard Genette appropriates what Philippe Lejeune called “lecture palimpsesteuse”[4], by defining it in very simple and also ambiguous terms: “lecture relationelle (lire deux ou plusieurs textes en fonction l’un de l’autre)”[5]. For me, I wouldn’t say “relational” because that term refers better to the cybermode of reading. I prefer a term like ”referential” reading, which means reading two texts simultaneously: the hypertext and its hypotext, not knowing which of them is the host of the other[6]. To correct a metaphor, as the most common textual practice, hypertextuality generates a Babelian hypertextual index rather than a virtual infinite book or library. That’s why we must reconsider what we understand by reading. Because an index can’t be read, but only consulted, like any dictionary. Literature as a hypertextual classified museum.
Even if hypertext is typically postmodern(ist) – defining a moment also called textualism in the literary field, after the well-known Derridean conundrum Il n’y a pas de hors-texte – hypertextuality has been the very basis and logic of literature since its origins. This textual practice has become dominant for what Gilles Lipovetsky calls hypermodernism – by defining hypermodernity as a superlative modernity and denying what was unhappily qualified as postmodernism and postmodernity. Because, etymologically, hyper means precisely the French de hors! And hypertext means at the same time beside the text and the text beside another text. Thus, we should say again, maybe more accurately: de hors-texte il y a toujours un autre texte – l’hypertexte.
Anyway, that acceptation of hypertext as
the underlying structure of Internet, conceived as a global hypermediatic and
without ending network, is the result of a literalisation process, which put
into practice what Derrida metaphorically stated in L’Écriture et la
difference. Those virtual hyperlinks are the hyperreal forms of the
references that are invisibly coining various paper-written texts. Of course,
one could say it’s the same thing. Only that it’s hyperreal! The difference
lies not simply in the textual format (typed and digitalized), but also in two
aspects of textual reality, which transgresses the limits that make possible
the very existence of a text.
In conclusion, at first sight, what Internet or digital medium does is only to put into practice a metaphor, to make a figure literal, by destroying its charm. The result is hypertext as we use it every day. But emphasis should be placed on the synonymy of hyper with… paper. In describing a text translated on a digital support, a term like cybertext is more accurate, as I shall state in the second part of this, again, paper.
2. Cybertext and cybermodernism
In 1997, Espen J. Aarseth defined cybertext as a type of ergodic literature[7], emphasizing the role of the cyber-medium in the reception of cybertextual realities. But not only there is the medium a character, if we want to follow Aarseth’s statements. First, a medium is always defined in contrast with another, and even paper is present more than in a tactile way when we read a book. Secondly, the choice of the reader who has become a user is only a graduation of the same possibility, pre-existent in the nonvirtual age. Finally, the long proclaimed openness of cybertext is just a little bit larger than the traditional one. I would just say that the openness of the text is real, not only a critical metaphor.
In short, cybertext is a transition between hypertext and digitext or, in more words, a paper text translated into digital form, but without any digital qualification. The pure transcription of a text from its analogue form into its digital format. Extrapolating, I think we should expand this definition in both sides – id est in every possible direction. Thus, cybertextuality as textual practice would be the proliferation of literature beyond the paper-written support and also the penetration of digital media into the realms of literature. A blog, for example, is mainly a collage of texts indirectly or even directly copied from a classic support on a digital one. But, on the other hand, we have that large amount of cyberpunk paper-written literature, which moves from the virtual into the classic (or rather modern?) reality. In any case, it’s just a translatation, a transliteration between two textual boundaries, provoked by the cyber-space boom.
Of course, terms like cybertextuality and cybertextualism become absolutely necessary in these conditions, and they must be defined in relation with hypertextuality and hypertextualism. Then, this new kind of text permits a participative and collaborative reading (when it moves from the paper support onto the electronic one), made possible by the hyperlinks. But, I repeat, at this level a (hyper)link only connects and never unites two texts in a scriptic succession rapport. I will give one example of producing cybertexts: in the Romanian virtual space (if such a localisation is not superfluous) the latest collaborative practice of writing is the Babel Story site[8], a free platform for intercyberauthors. But, like that Storyspace of the 80’s, this Babelian story project hardly uses of the digital specificity; it could be conceived as well in a traditional analogical medium as a creative writing session – collective, how else.
The new millennium marks the end of postmodernism (although hypermodernism is a more accurate term), and cybermodernism emerges as a transition towards a completely new cultural paradigm. If hypermodernity proposed the end of humanity as a collective subject, cybermodernity proposes the cyborg as an alternative to the death of man. A cyber-persona surrounding the inner void. A void eternally on-line. But everything has an end. Even ending. If this (or that, already?) cyberhumanity was the literalisation – id est realisation – of a cultural metaphor due to Foucault’s post-humanity, we should be the messengers of the rebirth of man. But this paper is about literarisation, not about literalisation.
3. Digitext and digitalism
When it comes to what I shall define as digitext, the pre-examples are already common: Raymond Queneau’s Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch or the novels of Milorad Pavić, in which reading is a combinatorial act, ordered by the reader and not by the author, who only proposes different trajectories. In addition to this, we could say that the reception theory of this kind of texts is beyond reading, overcoming it into a more complex interaction.
Of course, digitext is coined from the
words digital and text. However, the emerging word
is completely new. It’s neither a derivative word, like hypertext or cybertext,
where we have two terms – a prefix and a root word – nor a compound word. It’s
a new noun, which has nothing to do with digital, nor with the
common text. Because in digitext the two component
parts are unified in that internal „-t-”, which mixes them together. Like in a
chemical reaction, the two reactants – in this case, digital and text –
make a new substance. What does salt have to do with chlorine and sodium?
Anyway, if hypertext remains on paper and cybertext remains the virtual form of
a paper-written text (or the virtual reality put on paper), we now can define
digitext as a writable, operable and performable text only in a digital medium,
inconvertible to a paper support. Obviously, we could play a little and say
that digital literature is written with all our ten fingers on a keyboard. In
contrast, the other old literature is written with a pen(cil) held in one hand,
being a manual literature. And, surprisingly, analogue means exactly manual!
Yet, this digital literature seems to be sentenced to immaturity. Besides interactive fiction, let’s take poetry for example. Of course, poems could be written at two hands, on yahoo messenger. But poetry, that true Poetry, will always remain a solipsist act. As for the rest, only fakes and hypocrisy. Literature at its best is the result of a lonely pact with the real – whatever that real is. That’s why digital poetry won’t surpass the fad freaky stage. Or, at least, with extreme difficulty. Maybe digital prose or digital dramaturgy will have more luck. Because poetry cannot be unlinked with our soul, without it ceasing to be poetry. Mais, hélas, c’est une autre histoire! For now, we must agree that as a culmination of the writing liberalisation (a main result of blogging, the cybertextual phenomenon par excellence) the aesthetic value of the digitext collapses under a very common pleasure principle, being a forced form of literature, too little spontaneous. But who knows? Maybe the real digiwriter is not born yet. Afterwards, reading is a death concept in our digital age. But we could accept a performative reading, equal in importance with the writing process. Anyway, to finish with these obsolete categories, for digitext – and not only for it – critical literacy became a myth. Digitext contains its own critical approach. Digitext is beyond criticism and aesthetic value. That’s a fact.
Above, I defined cybermodernism as a buffer zone between hyper-and-not-post-modernism and a new episteme. How should we call it? If we regard digitext as the specific textual form of the new cultural paradigm, it is as logical as possible to define the moment digitalism. Why this movement from a textual embodiment towards a dominant -ism? Inaugurated by the relation between textualism and postmodernism, this direction of thought became almost a rule. So let it be digitalism. But still, at this point I have to mention and vigorously quote Alan Kirby, an Oxford-based cultural critic whose last-year book, Digimodernism. How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, debates our subject. I will postpone the terminological polemic on the deficiency of a word like digimodernism and accept its content:
Since its first appearance in the second half of the 1990s under the impetus of new technologies, digimodernism has decisively displaced postmodernism to establish itself as the twenty-first century’s new cultural paradigm. It owes its emergence and pre-eminence to the computerization of text, which yields a new form of textuality characterized in its purest instances by onwardness, haphazardness, evanescence, and anonymous, social and multiple authorship. These in turn become the hallmarks of a group of texts in new and established modes which also manifest the digimodernist traits of infantilism, earnestness, endlessness and apparent reality. Digimodernist texts are found across contemporary culture, ranging from “reality TV” to Hollywood fantasy blockbusters, from Web 2.0 platforms to the most sophisticated videogames, and from certain kinds of radio show to crossover fiction. In its pure form the digimodernist text permits the reader or viewer to intervene textually, physically to make text, to add visible content or tangibly shape narrative development. Hence “digimodernism”, properly understood as a contraction of “digital modernism”, is a pun: it’s where digital technology meets textuality and text is (re)formulated by the fingers and thumbs (the digits) clicking and keying and pressing in the positive act of partial or obscurely-collective textual elaboration.[9]
Obviously, this process of textual digitisation hasn’t come out of nowhere, and Alan Kirky further asserts that “in its early years a burgeoning digimodernism co-existed with a weakened, retreating postmodernism; it’s the era of the hybrid or borderline text (The Blair Witch Project, The Office, the Harry Potter novels)”, but also cyberpunk literature and other forms of cybertext. As I have shown above, cybermodernism was precisely that borderline between hypermodernism[10] and our digitalism.
And finally, the promised polemic. Why digitalism and not digimodernism? On the one hand, a contraction of “digital modernism” is improper in this case, because the result gives us a term without any reference to the digital. We don’t have a prefix like digi, we must use digit. What functions in the word digitext as a fusion, here is a nonsense. On the other hand, we should at last get rid of this modernism, which has become a mere stereotype and, thereby, a self-sufficient headache! Because the digital revolution marches beyond modernism. In other words, why not simply digitalism? Why must we always, again and again, reuse this twentieth-century suffix named modernism? We must go on!
Of course, to quote the paper call for this article, digital technologies open the field of literature and literarity to new forms of literary practice, yet we cannot even suggest “the demise of literature” in the age of digitalism. There is only a diminution of the literarity as what makes a text to actually be a text and, secondly, we are witnessing a proliferation of new textual practices, alternative styles of reading and spectacular ways of collaboration.
Bibliography:
Aarseth, Espen J.: Cybertext. Perspectives
on Ergodic Literature, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
Maryland, 1997;
Genette, Gerard: Palimpsestes.
La littérature au second degré, Éditions du Seuil (collection Poétique),
Paris, 1982;
Kirby, Alan: Digimodernism. How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, New York, Continuum, 2009.
Notes
[1] A Thomas Pavel phrase and homonymous
book.
[2] As they were classified by Nelson
Goodman in his Ways of Worldmaking.
[3] Gerard Genette, Palimpsestes. La
littérature au second degré, Éditions du Seuil (collection Poétique),
Paris, 1982, pp. 11-12.
[4] Gerard Genette, op. cit.,
p. 451.
[5] Ibidem.
[6] And here we take for granted a
metaphor developed by J. Hillis Miller in his essay “The Critic as Host”.
[7] Cf. Aarseth, Espen J., Cybertext:
Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, The Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, Maryland, 1997.
[8] www.babelstory.com.
[9] See www.alanfkirby.com/Introduction.pdf,
where the author uploaded the first pages of his book.
[10] For Kirby, hypermodernism is after
postmodernism and similar in a way with his digimodernism. But for Gilles
Lipovetsky, who is the father of the hyper-terminology, hypermodernism is
equivalent with postmodernism as content.
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