The silicon future

Bibliographic Data

ID6443380
AuthorsJohn Cheney-Lippold (0009-0003-5803-828X, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume27
Issue7
Pages4164-4180
Publication date2024-03-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448241234864
OpenAlexW4392591270
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited31

This article proposes the concept of the silicon future—a privileged temporal position that functionally precedes the present—to argue for an increased focus on temporality and the role it plays in technodeterminist discourse. By interpreting how Silicon Valley firms employ this silicon future as an inevitability that they themselves have already reached, the article describes a temporal paternalism—a claim to authority that validates itself not according to arguments or facts, but to temporal supremacy—that executives and venture capitalists rely on to justify their actions and investments. In kind, this article shows how this idea of an already-existing future is used by big tech to frame its own inventions as inevitable, unregulatable, and beyond critique. Using news reports and other publicfacing technophilic materials, it traces the temporal forms that underwrite the power of Silicon Valley’s technodeterminism

Business · Optoelectronics · Silicon · Silicon valley · Computer Science · History of Computing Technologies · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Materials Science · University-Industry-Government Innovation Models

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