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Алгоритмическая власть: кибернетическая рациональность и политические следствия
This article examines algorithmic power, understood as a form of power based on the collection and analysis of data for the purpose of modelling and pre-emptively shaping possible behavior, through the lens of Michel Foucault’s analytics of power. Drawing on a critical engagement with the concepts of algorithmic governmentality developed by Antoinette Rouvroy and Thomas Berns and instrumentarian power by Shoshana Zuboff, the article identifies the distinctive features of algorithmic power. It argues that predictive and preventive forms of governance, as well as governance through interventions in the milieu, are inherited from the biopolitical security apparatuses described by Foucault. At the same time, algorithmic power is characterized by its a-signifying nature and operates outside the production of meaning and subjectivity, abandoning orientation toward statistical norms and shifting from causal explanation to the optimization of correlations. Particular attention is paid to the capacity of algorithmic power to exercise continuous control through real-time feedback loops. The notion of algorithmic governmentality is critically reassessed: it is argued that algorithmic techniques of power, in conjunction with computer science, do not constitute a self-standing governmentality but rather operate within a broader form of rationality shaped by cybernetics. Cybernetic rationality not only provides the operational principles of algorithmic governance but also makes algorithmic mechanisms a rational and legitimate means of intervening in behavior. Finally, the article explores the political consequences of the spread of algorithmic power, including the erosion of the public sphere, the disappearance of the boundary between private and public life, and the threat posed to the fundamental conditions of the political: plurality, difference, unpredictability, and natality – which are increasingly displaced by the logic of predictive optimization.