Benjamin H. Bratton

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Benjamin H. Bratton
Born	November 3, 1968 (1968年11月03日) (age 56) Los Angeles, California
Education	University of California, Santa Barbara (PhD)
Notable works	The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (2015), The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World (2021)
Website
www.bratton.info

Benjamin H. Bratton (born 1968) is an American philosopher of technology known for his work spanning social theory, computer science, speculative design, artificial intelligence, and for his writing on "planetary scale computation."^{[1] [2]}

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He is Professor of Visual Arts at University of California, San Diego ^[2] (UCSD), and author and editor of numerous books and essays.^[3] He has taught at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland ^[4] and was visiting professor at NYU Shanghai (2019-22).^[5] Prior to teaching at UCSD, Bratton taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles from 2001 to 2010 and is now a distinguished visiting professor.^[6] He taught in the Department of Design Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 2003 to 2008.^[7] He founded University of California, San Diego's Speculative Design undergraduate major.^[8] He holds a PhD in the sociology of technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.^[9]

In 2016, he succeeded Rem Koolhaas as program director of the Strelka Institute, a Moscow-based think tank and post-graduate program in architecture, media, and design.^[10] He directed two three-year programs, The New Normal ^[11] and The Terraforming.^[12] At the outbreak of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine the institute indefinitely suspended all programs.^[13]

As of 2022, Bratton is the Director of a new research program on the speculative philosophy of computation called Antikythera, incubated by the Berggruen Institute.^{[14] [15]} He is Visiting Faculty Researcher in the Paradigms of Intelligence Research group in Google Technology and Society.

See also: The stack (model of planetary computation)

Benjamin Bratton developed the concept of Planetary Computation which refers both to the global scale of digital infrastructures and also how contemporary scientific and philosophical concepts of the Planetary emerge in relation to computational perception and modeling. He argues the computation was discovered as much as it was invented. In the form of The Stack, planetary computation has important philosophical and geopolitical consequences. Drawing on the language of Stanislaw Lem, he considers planetary computation a kind of "epistemological technology."

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty was published by MIT Press in late 2015^[16] . The book challenges traditional ideas of sovereignty centered around the nation-state and develops a theory of geopolitics that accounts for sovereignty in terms of planetary-scale computation at various scales.^[17] Its two core arguments are that planetary-scale computation "distorts and deforms traditional Westphalian logics of political geography" and creates new territories in its own image, and that different scales of computing technology can be understood as forming an "accidental megastructure" that resembles a multi-layer network architecture stack, what Bratton calls "The Stack."^{[18] [19]} The Stack is described as a platform. Bratton argues that platforms represent a technical and institutional model equivalent to states or markets but reducible to neither. Bratton refers to the book as "a design brief" suggesting that the layers of this structure are modular available to innovation and replacement.^[20]

He argues that the Anthropocene should be understood as a kind of accidental terraforming and  the long-term project at hand is more deliberate and comprehensive composition of Earth systems for the extension of complex life in the future. "To terraform Earth to ensure that Earth can support Earth-like life." With a view of biochemistry and planetary timescales, Bratton contrasts the terraforming to Environmental Humanities which, he argues, rely on social reductionist and cultural determinist views.^[21] Bratton published the short book, The Terraforming^[22] , and  directed a three-year research program based on these ideas. Themes of the book and program included planetary technologies, automation as ecology, artificial metabolisms, planetary governance, and the Fermi paradox.

According to Bratton, the artificial is not contrasted to nature but rather than the evolution selects for forms of life adept at artificializing their environments for purposes of "energy, matter and information capture."^[23] He situates this in the dynamic between autopoiesis and allopoiesis. He argues that through artificialization, it is possible to better understand naturally evolved forms, for example, synthetic biology and artificial intelligence.^[24]

Drawing on cybernetics and evolutionary biology, he refers to synthetic intelligence as the process by which machine signal processing and biosemiotics including human language produce amalgamated forms of analytical and creative cognition. This includes but is not limited to contemporary artificial intelligence. Bratton has argued that as natural intelligence evolved through the interactions of multiple minds, so too for artificial intelligence. This is contrasted with one-on-one mind vs. mind paradigms exemplified by Turing’s Imitation Game.  

This evolutionary and ecological theory of machine intelligence has been developed in numerous articles, lectures, and research projects.

In an article Benjamin Bratton wrote for New York Times in 2015, "Outing AI" criticized overly anthropomorphic views of AI. "The Model is the Message"(2022) co-authored with Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a VP of Artificial Intelligence at Google, examined recent controversies over large language models and the problems of recognizing sentience in machines.^{[25] [26]} The essay inspired an edited volume of the same name published by New Centre for Research and Practice and &&&. The lecture film "After Alignment" argued that mainstream ideas of AI alignment are potentially misguided.^[27] The essay "The Five Stages of AI Grief"^[28] considers contemporary AI discourses in relation to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross stages of grief. The Antikythera research studio, Cognitive Infrastructures, explored how synthetic intelligence evolves in real world contexts, and presented in the lecture film "57 Ideas About Cognitive Infrastructures."

Planetary sapience refers to the often violent process by which complex life and intelligence evolves through the interactions of planetary systems and eventually becomes the medium through which a planet partially comprehends its own processes. Examples include encephalization, computational climate science, and model simulations. He argues that once complex intelligence evolved, certain macrohistorical events may have been inevitable, but that the ecological costs of that evolution may undermine the future of planetary sapience.

The essay "Planetary Sapience"(2021) published in Noema compares the violent evolution of natural intelligence with the emergence of synthetic intelligence and considers their interrelation in terms of an understanding of intelligence as part of geological history and planetary formation.^[29] He contrasts this with the popular notions of Gaia and the Noosphere. Planetary Sapience was the topic of a conference at MIT Media Lab.

Bratton situates his philosophical investigations of technology in direct contrast with those founded in the Continental Philosophical tradition exemplified by Martin Heidegger. He criticises Cosmotechnics’ reliance on Heidegger and what he regards as its anti-realism and conservative multiculturalism. Instead he emphasizes the role of "allocentric" perspectives exemplified by the "trauma" of the Copernican Revolution. He argues that philosophy must build on the raw insights of science and engineering, not merely critique them. In concert with the ideas of Lem, Manuel de Landa,  Sara Walker, Brian Arthur, and others, he argues that technology evolves in ways not wholly dissimilar to biological evolution.  

Bratton directs the Antikythera think-tank "reorienting planetary computation as a philosophical, technological, and geopolitical force." Affiliate researchers include Computer Scientists, Philosophers, Astrophysicists, Architects, Filmmakers Historians and Science-Fiction authors. The program is incubated by Berggruen Institute and hosts research studios, lectures and salons and publishes a book series and online journal with MIT Press^[30] .  

In 2014, his talk "We Need to Talk About TED" went viral after being given at San Diego TEDX.^[31] The lecture was highly critical of what he called TED’s evangelical approach to innovation, calling the conference series "Middle Megachurch Infotainment." The talk was re-published in The Guardian and drew responses from TED founder, Chris Anderson.^[32]

In 2021, Verso Books published Bratton's book on the COVID-19 pandemic based on his essay "18 Lessons for Quarantine Urbanism".^{[33] [34]} The book argues that the pandemic demonstrates on ongoing crisis of governance in the West, and that technological capacity to respond to planetary crises outstrips the social and cultural capacity for collective self-organization.^[35] The book discusses concepts of the epidemiological view of society, cultural controversies over masks, and points toward a positive biopolitics in sharp contrast with the work of Giorgio Agamben.^[36]

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty was published by MIT Press in late 2015.^[18] The book challenges traditional ideas of sovereignty centered around the nation-state and develops a theory of geopolitics that accounts for sovereignty in terms of planetary-scale computation at various scales.^[16] Its two core arguments are that planetary-scale computation "distorts and deforms traditional Westphalian logics of political geography" and creates new territories in its own image, and that different scales of computing technology can be understood as forming an "accidental megastructure" that resembles a multi-layer network architecture stack, what Bratton calls "The Stack."^{[37] [17]} The Stack is described as a platform. Bratton argues that platforms represent a technical and institutional model equivalent to states or markets but reducible to neither. Bratton refers to the book as "a design brief" suggesting that the layers of this structure are modular available to innovation and replacement.^[19]

His 2015 book Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution was published by e-flux Journal and Sternberg Press in 2015.^[38] It launched publicly at the 2016 edition of the Transmediale festival in Berlin.^[39] In the description by Sternberg Press the book is " kaleidoscopic theory-fiction" which "links the utopian fantasies of political violence with the equally utopian programs of security and control."^[40]

"On Geoscapes & Google Caliphate: Except #Mumbai" examines the correspondence of political theology and planetary computation as modes of political geography.^[41]

His lecture "Surviving the Interface: the Envelopes, Membranes and Borders of Deep Cosmopolitics" considers the emergence of new forms of sovereignty derived from shared digital and urban infrastructures, and the challenges they pose to conventional understandings of architectural partitions and national borders.^[42]

In his article, "iPhone City (v.2005)" Bratton was early to demonstrate the impact that cinematic user interfaces for mobile social media would have on urban design.

His current work develops a political theory of planetary-scale computation and draws from disparate sources, from Paul Virilio, Michel Serres, and Carl Schmitt, to Alan Turing, Google Earth, and IPv6.^[43]

In 2017, Bratton completed The New Normal an ebook for Strelka Press, which outlines the radical effects that technology is having on our world and describes the emerging forms of city that we should now be designing for.^[44]

The essay "Planetary Sapience" (2021) published in Noema compares the violent evolution of natural intelligence with the emergence of synthetic intelligence and considers their interrelation in terms of an understanding of intelligence as part of geological history and planetary formation. He contrasts this with the popular notions of Gaia and the Noosphere.^[45]

"The Model is the Message" (2022) co-authored with Blaise Aguera y Arcas, a VP of Artificial Intelligence at Google, examined recent controversies over large language models and the tendency to misattribute sentience to machines.^[46]

Bratton was born in Los Angeles, California in 1968 and grew up in Santa Paula, a small agricultural town in Southern California. He lives in La Jolla, California and has a son, Lucien, with writer Bruna Mori. He was adopted at an early age, and is the half-brother of Jamie Stewart of the band Xiu Xiu.^[47]

• The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. MIT Press, 2016. ISBN 9780262029575
  • Le Stack: Plateformes, logiciel et souveraineté, UGA Editions, 2016. ISBN 978-2377470464. (French)

• Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution. Pref. Keller Easterling, Sternberg Press, 2015. ISBN 9783956791956.
  • Plan De Choque Para Derrotar El Exceso Futuro, pref. Keller Easterling, trans. Federico Fdez. Giordano, Holobionte Ediciones, 2024. ISBN 9788412572674. (Spanish)
• The Revenge of the Real. Verso, 2022. ISBN 9781839762574.
  • Die Realität schlägt zurück: Politik für eine postpandemische Welt. Translated by David Frühauf. Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlag, 2022 (Kindle Edition). ISBN 9783751803564. (German)
• The Terraforming. Strelka Press, 2019. ISBN 9785907163027.
  • La Terraformation. Translated by Yves Citton and Aurélien Blanchard. Presses Du Reel, 2021. ISBN 9782378962647.(French)
  • La terraformación. Translated by Toni Navarro. Caja Negra, 2021. ISBN 9789871622993. (Spanish)
  • Γεωδιαμόρφωση. Translated by Yannis Fragos.  Topovoros Exarcheion Publications, 2023. ISBN 9786185771324. (Greek)
  • Teraformiranje. Translated by Marko Bauer, Založba Sophia, 2020. ISBN 9789617003550. (Slovenian)
  • The Terraforming. Translated by Varvara Babitskata. Strelka Press, 2020. ISBN 9785907163171. (Russian)

• Machine Decision is Not Final: China and the History and Future of AI. (co-edited with Ana Greenspan and Bogna Konior) Urbanomic, 2023. ISBN 9781913029999.
• The New Normal (co-edited with Nicolay Boyadjiev and Nick Axel) Strelka/Park 2020.  ISBN 9783038602200.

• "Logistics of Habitable Circulation." Introduction to Speed and Politics, by Paul Virilio. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 2006. ISBN 9781584350408.
• "The Black Stack." e-flux Journal, no. 53, March 2014.
• "iPhone City." Architectural Design 85, no. 1, 2015: 102–107.
• "Outing AI," New York Times, February 23, 2015.
• "Outing Artificial Intelligence. Reckoning with Turing Tests" in Pasquinelli, Matteo: Alleys of Your Mind. Augmented Intelligence and Its Traumas. Meson Press Eg 2015, p. 69-80.ISBN 3957960657.
• "On Anthropolysis." e-flux Architecture: Superhumanity, January 2017.
• "The City Wears Us: Notes on the Scope of Distributed Sensing and Sensation." Glass Bead. 2017.
• "Planetary Sapience." Noema,  June 17, 2021.
• "Synthetic Garden: Another Model of AI" Atlas of Anomalous AI. Edited by Ben Vickers and Kenric McDowell, Ignota Books. 2021. ISBN 978-1999675950.
• Bratton, Benjamin, and Blaise Agüera y Arcas. "The Model Is the Message." Noema , July 12, 2022.
• "On Hemispherical Stacks." Vertical Atlas . Edited by Leonardo Dellanoce, Amal Khalaf, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Nanjala Nyabola, Renée Roukens, Arthur Steiner and Mi You. pages 168-175, March 2022.
• "The Stack at the Edge of Planetarity: Convergence, Divergence, and War." Vertical Atlas . Edited by Leonardo Dellanoce, Amal Khalaf, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Nanjala Nyabola, Renée Roukens, Arthur Steiner and Mi You. pages 270-278, March 2022.
• "Not Right Now: On Immediacy and the Ironies of Life in a Hypermediated World." TANK Magazine , Issue 98. 2024.
• "Stages of AI Grief." Noema. June 20, 2024.

• Bratton.info – Benjamin H. Bratton's personal website
• Antikythera Think-tank on speculative philosophy of computation
• Academia.edu Bratton books and articles
• Bratton's page at the Department of Visual Arts, UCSD

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