Jan Tobias Fuhrmann
Jan Tobias Fuhrmann
Doctoral project
The Time of Algorithms. On the establishment of algorithmic time regimes in economics and politics (working title)
Abstract
The project aims to clarify the question of how society processes algorithmic time regimes. It is hypothesised that algorithmic time regimes produce closed futures. Algorithmic time regimes only require the future in order to confirm or disappoint the validity of the forecast of the future from the existing data material, i.e. to optimise it. The future is no longer an open design space, but serves to calibrate the forecast. This contradicts the concept of the future of modern society. After reconstructing the algorithmic time regime, the project will examine the processing of the rupture in economics and politics in order to understand the social effects of algorithmic time regimes.
Short biography
since 10/2020
Scholarship holder in the MWK doctoral programme 'Shaping the Future. Transforming the present through scenarios of digitalisation' at the University of Oldenburg
Studied social sciences at the TU Kaiserslautern and the University of Lucerne
Lectures
09/23
Algorithmic unifications in the context of scheduling practices as the production of a certain future. Congress Political Theory in Times of Uncertainty of the Section for Political Theory and History of Ideas of the German Political Science Association. University of Bremen.
09/23
The Duplex Structure of Communication. Reflections on the structural conditions of communicative events involving algorithmic systems. Conference Digitality|Culture|Language. University of Zurich.
07/23
On the necessity and impossibility of a critical systems theory. Congress Critical Times of the Austrian Sociological Association. Vienna University of Economics and Business.
11/22
Algorithmic Rationality as Reproduction of Social Hegemony. 1st Colloquia Triesen: Rationality in the 21st century. Private University of Liechtenstein.
https://kolloquia.ufl.li/fileadmin/user_upload/neu_Programm_zur_1._KOLLOQUIA_Triesen.pdf
06/22
Elias and the Regiment of Clock and Calendar Time. Conference Norbert Elias and ... University of Passau.
https://www.phil.uni-passau.de/soziologie/benkel/curriculum-vitae/fachtagungen/norbert-elias-und/?L%5Btt_news%5D=13--%20or
12/2021
Distributed Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence as an Addressing & Operations Problem. Conference Artificial Intelligence as a Concept in the Humanities & Social Sciences at the Schaufler Kolleg of the TU Dresden. tu-dresden.de/gsw/schauflerlab/einfuehrung/news-2/news/1-3-12-2021-kuenstliche-intelligenz-als-geistes-sozialwissenschaftlicher-begriff-interdisziplinaere-online-tagung
04/2021
Structurally Conservative Algorithms and the Political. Conference The Digitalisation of the Political at Hof University of Applied Sciences.
03/2021
Stilled Dynamics. On the function of property in the temporal logic of capitalist calculations. Contribution to the spring conference of the Economic Sociology Section Critique of Property? Towards a sociology of privatisation and socialisation. University of Hamburg [pdf]
02/2021
The pandemic reality of the corona crisis as a self-description crisis of modern society. Contribution to the digital colloquium Sociological Perspectives on the Corona Crisis of the Social Science Research Centre Berlin. Podcast available here: WZB | Spotify | Apple Podcasts [pdf]
08/2020
Capitalist calculations in the state-finance nexus. Contribution to the online conference Risikopraktiken im Staats-Finanz-Nexus. Free University of Berlin [pdf]
01/2020
The discomfort of theory. On the double power of theory and subjectivisation. Contribution to the workshop Living Theory. Humboldt University Berlin
12/2019
On the theoretical programme of a post-foundational systems theory. Lecture at MoMo Berlin [pdf]
11/2018
On the relationship between complexity, algorithm and society. Contribution to the conference Eigenlogiken der Datafizierung. RWTH Aachen
06/2018
On the (im)possibility of global alternatives to capitalism. Contribution to the research workshop critical geography. Goethe University Frankfurt a.M.
Publications
2024
Algorithmic rationality as the reproduction of social hegemony. In: Jens Eisfeld (ed.): Rationality in the 21st century. Weilerwist: Velbrück Science, 145-176.
2023
The Regiment of Clock and Calendar Time. On the hegemonisation of a semantics of time. In: Thorsten Benkel/Matthias Meitzler (eds.): Mythenjagd. Sociology with Norbert Elias. Weilerwist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 259-281.
Endless Theory: On its Relevance in the Context of Big Data. In: Berlin Journal of Sociology 33(3), 319-350. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11609-023-00502-3
The violence of the two-sided form: From the Critique of the Two-Sided Form to the Many-Sided Form of Critique. In: Social Systems 28(1), 163-201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/sosys-2023-0009
From allopoietic to autopoietic algorithmic systems. Reflections on the intrinsic logic of the operational closure of algorithmic systems. In: Richard Groß/Rita Jordan (eds.): KI-Realitäten. Models, practices and topologies of machine learning. Bielefeld: transcript, 115-141. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839466605-006
2022
Violence as groundless (enforcement). The constitutive violence of rigid forms and their legitimisation through repetition. In: Social Systems 27(1+2), 173-195. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/sosys-2022-0008
2021
The discomfort of theory. On the double power of theory and subjectivisation. In: Martin Karcher/Severin Sales Rödel (eds.): Living Theory. Hamburg: textem, 283-294.
Structurally conservative algorithms: Artificial intelligence as a communication problem. In: Anna Strasser/Wolfgang Sohst/Ralf Stapelfeldt/Katja Stepec (eds.): Künstliche Intelligenz - Die große Verheißung. Berlin: xenomoi, 103-128.
2020
together with Alexandra Reinig: The Corona Conspiracy. On the narrative total integration of the social self-description crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic. In: Marina Ortrud M. Hertrampf (ed.): Corona: Crisis or Turning Point? How crises unsettle and change cultures. PhiN supplement 24, 220-232.
Reciprocal disciplining. On the system-theoretical understanding of communication involving mental and algorithmic systems. In: Christian Leineweber/Claudia de Witt (eds.): Algorithmisation and Autonomy in Discourse. Hagen: Open University Hagen, 16-46. DOI: https: //doi.org/10.18445/20200727-092533-0
2019
Post-foundational systems theory. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag.
Comparison and exclusion. On the function of cultural semantics. In: Berlin Debate Initial 30(1), 27-38.
From epoch to epoch. A theoretical fragment on the inflation of epochal turns in sociological conceptualisation. In: Uwe Lammers (ed.): Theory and Practice in Times of Fake News. Munich: Grin, 27-71.