The de-legitimation of Machine Learning Algorithms (MLAs) in “The Social Dilemma” (2020): a post-digital cognitive-stylistic approach

Abstract Released on Netflix, the most popular algorithm-oriented streaming service, The Social Dilemma ( TSD ) is a vivid manifestation of how the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Algorithms ( MLA s) have turned both to new species of post-digital, semio-cognitive power. Premised on the conception of MLA s as non-human intermediaries, this research endeavor proposes a novel post-digital ethnography of technologically-mediated algorithmic contexts and takes the challenge of examining MLA s as distributed, contested, and unbounded figures in the filmic narrative of this Netflix production. For the purpose, the paper employs post-digital cognitive-stylistic analytical tools, geared by van Leeuwen’s (de)-legitimation strategies, to showcase how MLA s, as socio-technical actors, are semio-cognitively materialized through spatio-temporal, narrative-immersive de-legitimating patterns. The examination of algorithms as socio-technical imaginary agents fully integrated within sociotechnical assemblages yields insightful findings. Delving deep into the multiple “posts” in the post-digital milieu of the film, the analysis affords valuable results that reframe, rename, and de-legitimate MLA s’ performative agency that is not only procedural-computational, but is socio-technical, semio-discursive, and cognitive-stylistic as well.