The logic of the surface: on the epistemology of algorithms in times of big data

The image of big data and algorithms in society is obviously ambivalent. On the one hand, algorithms are seen as a tool of empowerment that allows us, for example, to render society transparent and thus governable, to the extent that the social sciences might even become obsolete. On the other hand, algorithms seem to assume a mysterious agency in the black box of the computer so that their operations are invisible and inscrutable to us: artificial intelligence is seen as something that one day will have the power to dominate us. Beyond these two extreme positions that both overestimate and underestimate how algorithms might change our way of seeing things and being in the world, the present article introduces a third perspective. Algorithms, it holds, indeed follow their own 'style of reasoning' and thus create new realities. At the same time, however, they 'reduce reality', as they lack access to the world of human sense making. Algorithms have no secrets but deploy a 'logic of the surface'. As they paint a behaviorist picture of human modes of existence, algorithms and big data might change our self-understanding. Engaging in epistemological questions will help us to capture the ontological implications of algorithmic reasoning.