Deep Shit: Paradigms, Paranoia and Politics of Machine Intelligence
Paul Feigelfeld

This lecture explores the infrastructuralization of artificial intelligence techniques and technologies including deep learning, convolutional neural networks, robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) along with the autonomization of capitalist processes in tools and entities like blockchains, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and Ethereum, approaching them in the context of their cultural, philosophical, political, social, economic and ecologic entanglements. Digital warfare from highly complex and clandestine weapon systems like Stuxnet to brute force Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks to algorithmic manipulation à la Cambridge Analytica (resulting in filter bubbles and targeted modes of address) call for highly urgent reforms in international law and war conventions, as well as new forms of critical practice and theory in all fields and across all disciplines.

Paul Feigelfeld studied Cultural Studies and Computer Science at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he worked for Friedrich Kittler and Wolfgang Ernst until 2013. Until the end of 2016, he was the academic coordinator of the Digital Cultures Research Lab at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Besides his academic work, he works as a writer, translator and editor as well as a curator and advisor for art institutions and universities. He is a guest professor at the Art Institute in Basel, fellow at TBA21 Academy and an advisory member of the Vienna Biennial Circle and teaches at various universities and art schools. Since its beginning in 2015, he is one of the coordinators of www.refugeephrasebook.de