Algorithms of Anxiety

“In a passionate yet well-reasoned plea, Elliott urges us to become aware of the far-reaching transformation which the increasing automation of our lives and society has on our selfhood and relations to others. A must read for all ready and willing to break the cycle.”Helga Nowotny, ETH Zurich, former President of the European Research Council “Anthony Elliott has always been far-seeing about the future of algorithmic thinking, a regime often totemized as ‘artificial intelligence’. Now he turns his attention to the way artificial intelligence can sum all of our fears and anxieties, thereby often exacerbating them. Because artificial intelligence is so accessible and yet so inaccessible, it provides each person with expanded psychic resources but at great cost. Unpacking this conundrum is a vital task and Eliott does it with gusto.”Sir Nigel Thrift, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick“A very powerful and timely thesis. An outstanding book. Exceptionally original… innovative and thought-provoking.”Luca Possati, Delft University of Technology“A lucidly written and highly accessible entry point into the social study of algorithms.”Ben Jacobsen, University of York“The book offers a window to understand a deeply unsettling phenomenon.”Thomas Birtchnell, University of Wollongong“Elliott’s work advances and questions issues connecting algorithmic technologies and intimacy that we as a society are addressing and places them in the context of modern social theory. The book is not an exercise in futurology but an empirically grounded and well-argued theoretical intervention. Elliott takes to heart Wittgenstein’s warning against disdain for particular cases and draws throughout the book on the experiences of people in everyday life who use algorithmic technologies to form a mesh of theoretical argument.”Dalibor Stehno, Czech Sociological Review“As the seasoned AI watcher Prof Anthony Elliott [shows] in Algorithms of Anxiety: Fear in the Digital Age, outsourcing our decision-making to machines and their growing control – how we drive, what we watch or the pace at which we work – is provoking an epidemic of personal anxiety.”Will Hutton, The Guardian‘This is unremittingly powerful stuff… It places digital culture and users on the couch and subjects them to analysis in the grand tradition of twentieth century cultural critique.’Thesis Eleven

Anthony Elliott is Bradley Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia.