Internet-ontologies-Things: Smart Objects, Hidden Problems, and their Symmetries

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In recent years, software studies has begun to conceptualize algorithmic objectslike the things in what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT)as ontological agents to the same extent as the humans who use them. Post-humanist philosophies such as speculative realism and object-oriented ontology have provided a theoretical foundation for this methodological elevation of objects to autonomous and sentient beings. Yet, the complicity between this philosophical discourse and the material transformation of our everyday lives, which are embedded with these smart objects, remains relatively underexplored. Within this constantly changing infrastructure, Internet-ontologies-Things: Smart Objects, Hidden Problems, and their Symmetries reveals a form of economic and political power whose algorithmic governance finds its justification in our newly cultivated paranoia about unknown and perhaps unknowable computational problems. In its examination of our smart world, this book illuminates the mechanisms by which this power mobilizes various algorithmic and ontological objects to identify a greater number of hidden problems within the physical domains of the IoT, from city sidewalks to the nerves and organs of our very own bodies.

Author Bio

Sungyong Ahn is Lecturer in Digital Studies at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has written extensively on the elusive materiality of digital objects, their ontological status, and the speculative economy of the media industry.