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Technicity and the Power of Institution

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Abstract

Our question is whether technicality can institute, and thus create a new power, or even legitimize and maintain institutions. It claims to do so, all haloed by sacredness or religiosity with the development of computers, networks and the Internet. But this would presuppose that technology could symbolize, i.e. embody an instance of Truth, an irrational core of beliefs or myths that would answer the question of 'why' we live in society. It claims to do so as an ‘applied science’ or technoscience, science having become the authority of truth in Western societies. But technicity cannot symbolize and remains locked in the "how", in the order of rational action, utility and efficiency.

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Notes

  1. All quotes without references to official translations were translated by Pierre Musso and Lila Roussel.

  2. Anthony Levandowski with Mark Harris, Inside the First Church of Artificial Intelligence. Wired, 15 November 2017. https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/. Accessed 18 November 2021.

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Musso, P. Technicity and the Power of Institution. Law Critique 33, 131–139 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-021-09318-7

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