Ideal Subjects The Abstract People of AI

How do data and artificial intelligence create a new, abstract digital subject? Exemplary Subjects examines how samples of our everyday lives and behaviors have become part of the world of data and artificial intelligence, and what this means for who we are and who we might become. By detailing how algorithmic prediction and AI-powered data modeling make us “ideal subjects,” Olga Goryunova explores the complex ways in which we interact with these digital abstractions. As we increasingly rely on computer records and models to process our experiences, digitally configured aspects of our lives are being fragmented and reconfigured to function as new entities. Rather than seeing these abstract assemblages as extensions of ourselves, Goryunova encourages us to consider these outputs of computational processes as an entirely new kind of self, one that is fundamentally beyond human. Through in-depth readings of contemporary digital practices and data analytics, Goryunova reveals the profound ethical, aesthetic, and political implications of the production and management of these new digital selves. It highlights the distinctive impact of computing on the shaping of the contemporary self, placing the present in a historical context of changing notions of the self, and providing us with much-needed tools for understanding how abstract big data entities embody our intimate selves. Ideal Selves offers a captivating and strange portrait of modern subjectivity in the technological age.