We become what we think: Machine laws in machine minds

Abstract

Machinic technologies such as digital watermarking present a challenge to the traditional relationship of the State and the individual. This is because such technologies provide a means for State law to directly and precisely influence the acts and thoughts of the individual. Foucault referred to homo-economicus; but today we have the rise of the machinic homo-legalis. This being is a complex synthesis of coded machinic technologies and humanity; a human who is coded through the utilisation of digital and biotech constructions. Such a being can be coded with law, directly or indirectly, with the law thus possessing a distinctive biological characteristic. In this way, the State can become at one with the individual - not just treating the governance of the individual as a technology, but being able to directly interface with that individual. The analogue barrier between individual and State will be destroyed, posing a direct challenge to the rationality of the State. Given current trends towards technological convergence and types of decentralisation, we could be observing the start of the decentralised machinic State enmeshed within the individual. This machinic State is not just a State with central bodies and organs, but a State which is based within human components and runs through those components. This machinic-biologic characteristic is why the basis of regulation of digital watermarking is so important, for the regulation of such watermarks marks the first step towards a digitised machinic law based within the individual.