Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious by N. Katherine Hayles

Author:N. Katherine Hayles [Hayles, N. Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-226-44791-9
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

Distributed Agency and Technical Autonomy

Cognitive technologies show a clear trajectory toward greater agency and autonomy. In some instances, this is because they are performing actions outside the realm of human possibility, as when high-frequency trading algorithms conduct trades in five milliseconds or less, something no human could do. In other cases, the intent is to lessen the load on the most limited resource, human attention, for example with self-driving cars. Perhaps the most controversial examples of technical autonomy are autonomous drones and robots with lethal capacity, now in development. In part because these technologies unsettle many traditional assumptions, they have been sites for intense debate, both within the military community and in general discussions. They can therefore serve as test cases for the implications of distributed agency and, more broadly, for the ways in which cognitive assemblages interact with complex human systems to create new kinds of possibilities, challenges, and dangers. To limit my inquiry, I will focus on autonomous drones, but many of the same problems attend the creation of robot warfighters, as well as nonmilitary technologies such as self-driving cars, and quasi-military technologies such as face-recognition systems.

The present moment is especially auspicious for analyzing technical autonomy, because the necessary technical advances are clearly possible, but the technical infrastructures are not so deeply embedded in everyday life that other paths are “locked out” and made much more difficult to pursue. In short, now is the time of decision. Debates entered into and choices made now will have extensive implications for the kinds of cognitive assemblages we develop or resist, and consequently for the kinds of future we fashion for ourselves and other cognitive entities with whom we share the planet.

My focus will not be on drone assassinations carried out by the United States in other countries without respect for national boundaries, including some American citizens killed without trial or jury, in clear violation of the Constitution and civil rights. This aspect is well covered by Medea Benjamin’s Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control (2013), in which she passionately opposes the drone program both for its unconstitutionality and more specifically for the horrific toll in civilian deaths (“collateral damage”), estimated to be as high as 30 percent.4 I also will not consider the myriad uses emerging for civilian UAVs, including rangeland monitoring, search and rescue missions, emergency responders in the case of fire and other life-threatening events, and UAVs used as mobile gateways, or “data mules,” collecting data from remote environmental sensors scattered over large territories (Heimfarth 2014). Rather, I will focus on piloted and autonomous UAVs,5 as well as multivehicle systems proceeding autonomously, with the swarm itself deciding which individual will play what role in an orchestrated attack. This range of examples, showing different levels of sensing abilities, cognitions, and decisional powers, illustrates why greater technical cognition might be enticing and the kinds of social, political, and ethical problems it poses.

With the massive shift after 9/11 from state-on-state violence to what Norman Friedman, a military analyst, calls expeditionary warfare,

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