Benjamin Bratton is a philosopher of technology. He is Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design at the University of California, San Diego. Through the lens of planetary computation, his work establishes new philosophical frameworks for interpreting the past, present and future co-evolution of life, culture, and technology.
He is Director of Antikythera, a think-tank researching the future of planetary computation based at the Berggruen Institute. The program’s research focuses on five areas: Planetary Computation, Synthetic Intelligence, Recursive Simulations, Hemispherical Stacks, and Planetary Sapience. Antikythera hosts specialized design studios, such as Cognitive Infrastructures, private salons and seminars, as well as public lectures and symposia. Antikythera publishes a journal and book series in collaboration with MIT Press.
Bratton directed two design research think-tanks based at Strelka Institute in Moscow, The New Normal and The Terraforming, with Nicolay Boyadjiev. Over six years the programs hosted hundreds of faculty and researchers from 25 countries who collaborated on original projects modeling the past, present and future relationships between city, planet, culture and computation.
Beginning in 2024, Bratton is Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google’s Paradigms of Intelligence group which conducts fundamental research on the artificialization of intelligence, from neuromorphic chip and algorithm design to modeling societies of billions of virtual agents. He has taught at the European Graduate School, SCI_Arc, UCLA, USC, and was Visiting Professor at NYU Shanghai.
Bratton is the author of several books including The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (MIT Press). At over 500 pages, The Stack develops a comprehensive accounting of the political, social and philosophical implications of planetary computation (a term the book introduces). Its argument is three fold. Computation must be seen not only in terms of algorithmic calculation or as a genre of tool, but as a form of global infrastructure that now not only relays information but is the primary source of its generation and mediation. Planetary computation both distorts and reforms modern Westphalian political geography in its own image, producing new forms of territory over which sovereignty is contested. Planetary computation should be seen not as a single undifferentiated mega-machine but as an “accidental megastructure” comprised of modular, functionally defined layers like a software/ hardware stack. These are Earth layer, Cloud layer, City layer, Address layer, Interface layer, and User layer, each with their own contested affordances and integral accidents.
The Terraforming (Strelka) is a concise manifesto for the research program of the same name, arguing that instead of retreating from the existential implications of the Anthropocene, planetary society must embrace anthropogenic artificiality in order to compose a planet that will sustain diverse life for the long term future, a terraforming not of Mars but of Earth.
The Revenge of the Real (Verso) is a short polemic on the irresolvable tension between contemporary populism and scientific views of life, governance and planetary society, as seen through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the endemic failures of biopolitical critique as a philosophical first principle.
Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, co-edited with Anna Greenspan and Bogna Konior, is a collection of historical, theoretical and fictional essays examining the history of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in China and how this history should be situated globally in relation to Western discourses.
The New Normal, co-edited with Nicolay Boyadjiev and Nick Axel, features the work and ideas of Strelka Institute research program of the same name, as well as several essays by Bratton and the program faculty. It includes the short book, The New Normal, previously published by Strelka Press.
Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution (E-Flux) is a collection of short fictions examining themes of architectural and political utopianism, the messianic cultures of political violence, unacknowledged doubling and simulation, and the fraught relationship between schemes and schemers.
At UC San Diego, Bratton founded the Speculative Design major, teaches courses in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, historical theories of technological evolution, the stack: mapping planetary computation, contemporary cultures of virtuality and simulation, architecture as information technology: from cave to the cloud, and the intellectual history of the future and futurisms. He advises doctoral and undergraduate students across numerous disciplines from Visual Arts to Computer Science. He has a PhD in Sociology of Technology from University of California, Santa Barbara, and lives in La Jolla, California.
Benjamin Bratton is a philosopher of technology. He is Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design at the University of California, San Diego. Through the lens of planetary computation, his work establishes new philosophical frameworks for interpreting the past, present and future co-evolution of life, culture, and technology.
He is Director of Antikythera, a think-tank researching the future of planetary computation based at the Berggruen Institute. The program’s research focuses on five areas: Planetary Computation, Synthetic Intelligence, Recursive Simulations, Hemispherical Stacks, and Planetary Sapience. Antikythera hosts specialized design studios, such as Cognitive Infrastructures, private salons and seminars, as well as public lectures and symposia. Antikythera publishes a journal and book series in collaboration with MIT Press.
Bratton directed two design research think-tanks based at Strelka Institute in Moscow, The New Normal and The Terraforming, with Nicolay Boyadjiev. Over six years the programs hosted hundreds of faculty and researchers from 25 countries who collaborated on original projects modeling the past, present and future relationships between city, planet, culture and computation.
Beginning in 2024, Bratton is Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google’s Paradigms of Intelligence group which conducts fundamental research on the artificialization of intelligence, from neuromorphic chip and algorithm design to modeling societies of billions of virtual agents. He has taught at the European Graduate School, SCI_Arc, UCLA, USC, and was Visiting Professor at NYU Shanghai.
Bratton is the author of several books including The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (MIT Press). At over 500 pages, The Stack develops a comprehensive accounting of the political, social and philosophical implications of planetary computation (a term the book introduces). Its argument is three fold. Computation must be seen not only in terms of algorithmic calculation or as a genre of tool, but as a form of global infrastructure that now not only relays information but is the primary source of its generation and mediation. Planetary computation both distorts and reforms modern Westphalian political geography in its own image, producing new forms of territory over which sovereignty is contested. Planetary computation should be seen not as a single undifferentiated mega-machine but as an “accidental megastructure” comprised of modular, functionally defined layers like a software/ hardware stack. These are Earth layer, Cloud layer, City layer, Address layer, Interface layer, and User layer, each with their own contested affordances and integral accidents.
The Terraforming (Strelka) is a concise manifesto for the research program of the same name, arguing that instead of retreating from the existential implications of the Anthropocene, planetary society must embrace anthropogenic artificiality in order to compose a planet that will sustain diverse life for the long term future, a terraforming not of Mars but of Earth.
The Revenge of the Real (Verso) is a short polemic on the irresolvable tension between contemporary populism and scientific views of life, governance and planetary society, as seen through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the endemic failures of biopolitical critique as a philosophical first principle.
Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, co-edited with Anna Greenspan and Bogna Konior, is a collection of historical, theoretical and fictional essays examining the history of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in China and how this history should be situated globally in relation to Western discourses.
The New Normal, co-edited with Nicolay Boyadjiev and Nick Axel, features the work and ideas of Strelka Institute research program of the same name, as well as several essays by Bratton and the program faculty. It includes the short book, The New Normal, previously published by Strelka Press.
Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution (E-Flux) is a collection of short fictions examining themes of architectural and political utopianism, the messianic cultures of political violence, unacknowledged doubling and simulation, and the fraught relationship between schemes and schemers.
At UC San Diego, Bratton founded the Speculative Design major, teaches courses in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, historical theories of technological evolution, the stack: mapping planetary computation, contemporary cultures of virtuality and simulation, architecture as information technology: from cave to the cloud, and the intellectual history of the future and futurisms. He advises doctoral and undergraduate students across numerous disciplines from Visual Arts to Computer Science. He has a PhD in Sociology of Technology from University of California, Santa Barbara, and lives in La Jolla, California.
Benjamin Bratton is a philosopher of technology. He is Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design at the University of California, San Diego. Through the lens of planetary computation, his work establishes new philosophical frameworks for interpreting the past, present and future co-evolution of life, culture, and technology.
He is Director of Antikythera, a think-tank researching the future of planetary computation based at the Berggruen Institute. The program’s research focuses on five areas: Planetary Computation, Synthetic Intelligence, Recursive Simulations, Hemispherical Stacks, and Planetary Sapience. Antikythera hosts specialized design studios, such as Cognitive Infrastructures, private salons and seminars, as well as public lectures and symposia. Antikythera publishes a journal and book series in collaboration with MIT Press.
Bratton directed two design research think-tanks based at Strelka Institute in Moscow, The New Normal and The Terraforming, with Nicolay Boyadjiev. Over six years the programs hosted hundreds of faculty and researchers from 25 countries who collaborated on original projects modeling the past, present and future relationships between city, planet, culture and computation.
Beginning in 2024, Bratton is Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google’s Paradigms of Intelligence group which conducts fundamental research on the artificialization of intelligence, from neuromorphic chip and algorithm design to modeling societies of billions of virtual agents. He has taught at the European Graduate School, SCI_Arc, UCLA, USC, and was Visiting Professor at NYU Shanghai.
Bratton is the author of several books including The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (MIT Press). At over 500 pages, The Stack develops a comprehensive accounting of the political, social and philosophical implications of planetary computation (a term the book introduces). Its argument is three fold. Computation must be seen not only in terms of algorithmic calculation or as a genre of tool, but as a form of global infrastructure that now not only relays information but is the primary source of its generation and mediation. Planetary computation both distorts and reforms modern Westphalian political geography in its own image, producing new forms of territory over which sovereignty is contested. Planetary computation should be seen not as a single undifferentiated mega-machine but as an “accidental megastructure” comprised of modular, functionally defined layers like a software/ hardware stack. These are Earth layer, Cloud layer, City layer, Address layer, Interface layer, and User layer, each with their own contested affordances and integral accidents.
The Terraforming (Strelka) is a concise manifesto for the research program of the same name, arguing that instead of retreating from the existential implications of the Anthropocene, planetary society must embrace anthropogenic artificiality in order to compose a planet that will sustain diverse life for the long term future, a terraforming not of Mars but of Earth.
The Revenge of the Real (Verso) is a short polemic on the irresolvable tension between contemporary populism and scientific views of life, governance and planetary society, as seen through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the endemic failures of biopolitical critique as a philosophical first principle.
Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, co-edited with Anna Greenspan and Bogna Konior, is a collection of historical, theoretical and fictional essays examining the history of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in China and how this history should be situated globally in relation to Western discourses.
The New Normal, co-edited with Nicolay Boyadjiev and Nick Axel, features the work and ideas of Strelka Institute research program of the same name, as well as several essays by Bratton and the program faculty. It includes the short book, The New Normal, previously published by Strelka Press.
Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution (E-Flux) is a collection of short fictions examining themes of architectural and political utopianism, the messianic cultures of political violence, unacknowledged doubling and simulation, and the fraught relationship between schemes and schemers.
At UC San Diego, Bratton founded the Speculative Design major, teaches courses in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, historical theories of technological evolution, the stack: mapping planetary computation, contemporary cultures of virtuality and simulation, architecture as information technology: from cave to the cloud, and the intellectual history of the future and futurisms. He advises doctoral and undergraduate students across numerous disciplines from Visual Arts to Computer Science. He has a PhD in Sociology of Technology from University of California, Santa Barbara, and lives in La Jolla, California.
Email: benjamin@bratton.info
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