Algorithmic Intimacies: Towards an Anthropology of Computational Life

This article advances an anthropology of algorithms by examining their role as ontological agents that shape subjectivity, intimacy, and cultural life. Rather than treating algorithms as neutral tools, it situates them as infrastructures that co-produce desire, mediate affect, and govern social relations across labor, consumption, and everyday interaction. Drawing on historical genealogies, ethnographic insights, and conceptual innovation, the article introduces new terms—ontological modulation, preemptive intimacy, algorithmic atmospheres, probabilistic description, computational affect, and ethical resonance—to capture the lived experience of computational mediation. It argues for anthropology’s critical role in understanding algorithms as constitutive of social worlds, demanding fresh theoretical and methodological vocabularies.