Algorithmic Capital

A rich and audacious account of the mutually reinforcing transformations of capitalism and technology in the age of AI

AI and algorithms are more than technologies. They are rooted in new capitalist forms and processes that transcend economics and technology to reshape social reality, politics, culture, and subjectivities.

Set out in twenty theses—stretching across geopolitics, the mining of rare earths, labor, crypto, influencers, climate change, Gen AI, social acceleration, Silicon Valley ideologies, and predictive policing—this book situates contemporary social change in the context of the advent of algorithmic capital. Jonathan Martineau and Jonathan Durand Folco show how the valorization of data and the development of AI are symptoms of deeper socio-economic and political mutations.

Algorithmic capital is, at once, a logic of accumulation, a form of social power, a mediation of social relations, and a relation to nature, as well as a multidimensional reality that profoundly reorganizes social life. In the face of this new and alarming stage of capitalism, the book explores possibilities for organizing and resistance, tracing a path toward a post-capitalist and just world.