Animo nullius
On AI's origin story and a data colonial doctrine of discovery
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8046572 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonnie Penn (0000-0003-0689-7421, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 19-34 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | BJHS Themes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2056-354X • E-ISSN: 2058-850X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/bjt.2023.14 |
| OpenAlex | W4389200339 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 10 |
This paper traces elements of the theoretical origins of artificial intelligence to capitalism, not neurophysiology. It considers efforts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to formalize a science of mental behaviour using the dynamics of social rather than neural phenomena. I first revisit early American theorists’ controversial ambivalence toward neurophysiology, showing how this group benefited from post-war corporate and military investments in commercial and imperial expansion, which sustained and expanded their influence over the emerging field. I then trace the lasting effect of the founders’ early rhetoric through AI's institutionalization after 1960, arguing that from the 2010s technology corporations set out to veil their enclosure of the data commons via appeal to a curious precedent: the scientific pedigree of AI. By relating the field to the history of capitalism, and specifically the rise of assetization in modern technoscience, I invite reflection on AI's origin story and on broader parallels between historical colonialism and data colonialism. I offer a heuristic – animo nullius , for ‘no persons’ mind’ – as an attempt to name rhetorical manoeuvres that leverage the authority of mind-as-computer metaphors in order to naturalize acts of seizure
Cybernetics and Technology in Society · History of Science and Medicine · Race, Genetics, and Society
Firsting and Lasting
Assetization
The discovery of the artificial. Some protocybernetic developments 1930–1940
The Government Machine
Colonial Charters
The Corporation as a Form of Colonial Government. II
An Indigenous Feminist's Take On The Ontological Turn
The Corporation as a Form of Colonial Government. I
The government machine
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |