Beyond the Algorithm
A series on cybernetics, systems theory, and the question of machine consciousness. Each episode takes one thinker seriously in their own terms, then tests those ideas against the systems being built today. Episodes stand on their own, but they were written in sequence, and the arc rewards listening in order.
Created by Brigitte E. S. Jansen. Produced by the Gesellschaft für Arbeitsmethodik e.V., a non-profit association founded in 1954 and based in Baden-Baden, Germany.
Narrated by a synthetic voice. In a series about machine minds, that is part of the argument rather than a production shortcut.
All episodes and further reading: bta.global-future-association.com
The association: gfaev.de
Comments, corrections, and disagreements are welcome.
Primary Texts by Elena Esposito:
- The Future of Futures: The Time of Money in Financing and Society (2011) – Core text on algorithmic prediction and temporal construction.
- Artificial Communication: How Algorithms Produce Social Intelligence (2022) – Complete treatment of algorithms as social actors.
- Die Fiktion der wahrscheinlichen Realität / The Fiction of Probable Reality (2007) – On mass media and reality construction (German).
- “Social Forgetting: A Systems-Theory Approach” (2008) – On memory, forgetting, and digital permanence.
- “Algorithmic Memory and the Right to Be Forgotten on the Web” (2017) – Legal and functional arguments for digital forgetting.
- “Economic Circularities and Second-Order Observation” (2013) – On self-referential financial markets.
- “Artificial Communication? The Production of Contingency by Algorithms” (2017) – On how algorithms generate possibilities.
Exercise
For one week, keep an “algorithmic diary.” Note every time an algorithm makes a decision that affects you: recommendations, search results, navigation routes, content feeds, autocorrections. Ask: Did this expand my world or narrow it? Did it predict my preference or create it? Did it show me something unexpected or just more of the same? At week’s end, reflect: Are you using algorithms, or are they using you?
More from the Gesellschaft für Arbeitsmethodik
The association and its other programmes:
gfaev.de Our other podcast series, all in German:
GfA – Der Podcast · The same questions pursued in German, currently the series “Das Bewusstsein der Maschinen”:
gfa-ev.com
GfA Kulturwelten · Art, music and cultural history, including a series on the history of Tango Argentino: kulturwelten.
gfaev-online.com
Gut zu Wissen: KI & SEO Insights · Artificial intelligence, search and structured data, for people who have to make it work in practice:
gfaev.eu
GfA History · Recorded lectures from the association:
gfa-web.de
If something here was wrong, or right in a way we did not expect, write to us. Corrections and objections find their way into later episodes.
