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Babbage's principle that machine design imitates and replaces a prior division of labour, linking technological innovation directly to social and economic labour structures.
1 chapter across 1 book
Chapter 1 moves from the need to clarify, before anything else, the central notion of computation: the algorithm. What is an algorithm? In computer science, it can be defined as a finite procedure of step-by-step instructions to turn an input into an output making the best use of the given resources. The chapter challenges this purely technical definition of the algorithm and argues for a materialist critique that may recognise its economic and social roots. After all, as with other abstract notions, such as number or mechanism, the algorithm has a long history; the mathematician Jean-Luc Chabert finds that ‘algorithms have existed since the beginning of time and existed long before a special word was coined to describe them’.43 By excavating the social mathematics of the ancient Hindu ritual Agnicayana, the chapter argues that algorithmic thinking and practices have belonged to all civilisations, not only to the metalanguage of Western computer science. Against mathematical and philosophical intuitionism, which believes in the full independence of mental constructs, the chapter stresses that algorithmic thinking emerged as a material abstraction, through the interaction of mind with tools, in order to change the world and solve mostly economic and social problems. Deliberately trenchant, the main thesis of this chapter is that labour is the first algorithm.Chapter 1 redefines the algorithm beyond its technical computer science definition by situating it within a materialist critique that highlights its economic and social origins, tracing algorithmic thinking back to ancient civilizations and emphasizing labour as the first algorithm. The chapter introduces the book's two-part structure, focusing first on the cognitive aspects of labour and automation in the industrial age, particularly through Babbage's principles of labour analysis, and second on the rise of connectionism and AI in the mid-20th century. It also explores the interplay between technological innovation and social organization, and the multifaceted meanings of 'machine intelligence' in the context of industrial and cognitive labour.