Wild Systems

When anthropogenic systems go feral

We like to think that we are in control of our offspring. But just like children grow up, so do our systems. Human technologies have become so complex that they now behave like independent ecologies. Algorithms run the stock market. Computer viruses keep going long after their creators have set them free. Genetically modified organisms thrive in the wild. In this new world of wild, technological beasts, will humans be at the mercy of our monsters?

‘Because of its Janus-faced powers, technology itself has become the sublime god of our (post)modern age’

Machines of Loving Grace

Adam Curtis explores the notion that Ayn Rand influenced the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of the 1990s to create a world where digital systems are more powerful than human ones.