The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

by Matteo Pasquinelli

Cybernetics unveiled the machinic nature of bureaucracy and, conversely, the bureaucratic role of machines – that is, how they both work as feedback apparatuses to control and capture workers’ know-how. The findings of Alquati’s research can be summarised as follows: (1) labour is the source of information of the industrial cybernetic apparatus, indeed the most valuable part of labour is information; (2) information operates the cybernetic apparatus, gradually improves its design and adds value to the final products; (3) the numeric dimension of cybernetics allows us to translate labour into knowledge, knowledge into information, information into numbers, and so, numbers into economic planning; (4) the cybernetic apparatus of the factory grows and improves thanks to the contribution of workers’ socialised intelligence. For the first time in a distinct way, the cybernetic or automated factory made visible the transformation of labour into measurable knowledge – that is, information.