Abstract

The algorithm is a sublimation of statistics. If statistics is still a reflection of reality, the algorithm becomes reality in itself, or self-reference, or implicit knowledge: a pure abstraction that evolves independently of any human intervention. It is no longer man who knows by algorithms, but the algorithms know by themselves. Artificial intelligence is the reflection of statistics; it is the extreme and definitive passage from the real to the virtual. We have reached the decisive turning from the humanization of the divine, the sovereign as a mortal God, to the deification of computation; a technological, social and cultural revolution called infinite computing. We don’t know how many autonomous software agents reshaping our lives, our interactions, and our environments. Faced with a systematic and overall change in human condition, what kind of society can we expect?