Convenience: The Drive for Innovation Under the Auspice of Compression
by Eduardo Navas

 

Written for the MEIAC exhibit "Algoritmia: Arte en la era de la inteligencia artificial"

Convenience with the symbiotic support of innovation and compression contribute to time efficiency for a global ideology of wealth measured and validated as data to be exchanged across networks; their relation culminates with the emergence of artificial intelligence. Works of digital art, since the early days of computing have in one way or another been a reflection on how convenience, innovation, and compression function across the economy, culture, and politics closely linked to conflicts of social class, race, sex, and gender. This essay is a critical reflection on how digital works of art play a role in this ongoing development. First the relation of convenience, innovation, and compression are discussed, followed by the analysis of the informational structure that makes possible current forms of digital production. Artificial intelligence, in turn, is discussed throughout the essay in relation to the three terms in order to conclude with a critical reflection on how digital art is a vital form of expression useful for questioning current assumptions about the role of emerging technologies in the ongoing dynamic at play across capitalism, culture, and society.

Under the Auspice

The works selected for the exhibit “Algorithmia: Art in the Era of Artificial Intelligence” offer a concrete glimpse at the relation of compression and innovation in support of convenience in order to create value that is measured as capital, but one that is foundationally informational. We can trace this in the selected works by noticing how some of them offer a glimpse at artificial intelligence during the emergence of the Internet. The works recently acquired by MEIAC provide timely critical reflections on the implications of more advanced stages of artificial intelligence, which is no longer just an aesthetic reflection on its own possibility of actual becoming, but now is the backbone of a global informational economy thriving on speculative abstraction. One thing the works of art in the exhibit clearly share is an awareness of their relation to cultural value as information, which in turn is distributed and legitimized through our economic infrastructure.

Capitalism is popularly considered the cause for economic shifts that lead to inequality in class difference closely linked to cultural tensions in terms of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, and national identity. Arguably the reason why it remains difficult to grasp the way capitalism functions is because it is commonly discussed and measured in terms of accumulation of monetary wealth. But this is not the real value of capital. We need to remember that capital has no automatic monetary value, but that it needs to be converted into monetary wealth.1   Its value has always been abstract and in part defined by time efficiency: how long it takes to perform an action (labor) transformed into socioeconomic value, always dependent on supply and demand. The last two variables have shifted their functional forms to perform as informational assets that reconfigure the way scarcity plays out in a period when certain goods can be supplied with greater ease if they are physical objects, and potentially infinitely available for consumption if they are purely informational in nature. This dynamic can be encapsulated with a focus on convenience, which is symbiotically supported by compression and innovationas common terms that in current times connect labor and leisure. A focus on the acceleration of technology makes it possible for the critically minded individual to notice the abstract process of value creation, and how it has become, at this point, fully detached from a clear relation to actual monetary wealth. Convenience, innovation, and compression thrive on an informational layer that in turn supports a networked economy that continues to achieve unprecedented efficiency with the implementation of artificial intelligence. The informational layer functions on top of previous modes of production that range from agriculture to information-based industries. To gain a better sense of convenience, innovation, and compression functioning as part of the informational layer, a brief overview of their relation is necessary.

The Informational Layer

The speed of exchange experienced in culture and the economy continues to increase because of reconfigurability among convenience, innovation, and compression functioning on the informational layer, which relies on stages of production that precede our current networked stage. The informational layer, while certainly nascent in previous periods of the Anthropocene, enjoys greater emphasis in current times, and is clearly satisfying demands for convenience as the means for optimizing action and exchange through innovation and compression.

The informational layer begins to play a prominent role once cultures move past advanced stages of late capitalism2 due to a need to expand beyond production that is bound by material goods. The possibility to consume concepts in the form of entertainment, not by purchasing objects such as copies, but through access by way of streaming services, for example, opens the door for a type of economy that is built not on physical goods, but on data, and in this sense immaterial goods that are consumed based on an advanced form of service: access to information is sold more than an actual object. When reconsidering this moment human production is more efficient with the increasing speed of information exchange. In effect, the informational layer currently functions as the binding backbone of the global economy. The informational layer is the ideal framework for the implementation of artificial intelligence as an advanced form of automation that can teach itself to improve at specified tasks.

The informational layer, from a sociocultural perspective, is a type of binder that on ideological terms supports people’s tendency to search for the easiest, less stressful, and least time-consuming ways to engage with their environment. The search for stability is certainly linked to this tendency, as well as with efficiency. Convenience, when not kept in check can be associated with laziness, and can lead to “cutting corners,” and even crime.3 Convenience linked to efficiency in terms of labor, once it moves to the area of leisure, becomes a strong motivator for making things easier and faster to produce supported with a nebulous notion of gaining more time to consume and enjoy material goods and time of leisure. The link between leisure and labor is made once disposable time becomes a possibility for laborers: convenience is a major motivator for finding ways to compress all things relevant to the human experience.

Convenience

The first thing we must ask is how and why would convenience be one of the cultural variables that support abstract value production that is not bound primarily with capital’s relation to monetary wealth, but yet is foundational to capitalism? Overview of various definitions of the term is useful to reflect on this question. Convenience is defined as “the state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty.”4 Another definition that is closer to labor and its eventual conversion to socioeconomic value is “fitness or suitability for performing an action or fulfilling a requirement.”5 As we move down variant definitions, we find, “something (such as an appliance, device, or service) conducive to comfort or ease,”6 which references material goods directly. The term can also be linked to time efficiency, “a suitable or convenient time”, which arguably is the one that makes the term a goldmine for all things thriving on the informational layer. Time is the key for all labor that can be turned into value that in turn is to be translated and accumulated as monetary wealth.7

At this point, we can notice how convenience becomes a type of ever-expanding assemblage of all things produced that provide the necessary drive to put specific parameters of value in place, which culminate in some type of product that promises to make a person’s life experience better along the lines of the various definitions of convenience. The implicit understanding of convenience being equivalent with saving time is perhaps the main drive that connects it to finding ways to make things increasingly more convenient.

From this position, it is clear that convenience (as the pivotal node of time efficiency) across networks is mashed up with monetary value after convenience proves its ability, for example, to support network virality by accumulating users; monetary value at such moment is based on careful guestimates. This is how social media juggernauts such as Facebook and Twitter were able to launch their initial public offering (IPO) with unproven business models.8 Their worth was defined by the number of users and how much content they produced, and the promise of growth by acquiring new users. These are the informational feudal lords; in their realms, users are more than willing to give up their content and privacy for the convenience to be connected to others.

Convenience in recent times is one of the main reasons why individuals are willing to trade their actions to save time. The price users pay for online social engagement is their privacy, although social media sites reconfigure this reality claiming that data they gather is used to ensure better services in the future, while holding the right to sell/share the data as they see fit, according to their user agreements. The power of convenience in part is also that it makes communication almost effortless. Compression, in turn, supports convenience through constant innovation.

We can trace this specifically to the long process of cultural development by noting the early stages of organized production with brute force moving through agriculture on to the rise of the factories, and the manufacturing, service, and informational industries. For the later three stages, a major shift took place when machines began to replace human labor. Automation in the factory, in particular, made more than evident a major shift that ideologically is linked to automation in terms of computing. Efficiency was at play in all of these moments: each relying on innovation to produce all imaginable things increasingly faster.

Innovation

Innovation is reciprocally validated by convenience, with the goal to save time, and in turn produce surplus through compression of labor. Innovation has been part of cultures since their beginnings. From the earliest stone tools to recent achievements in smart computing, innovation is the concept consistently used to frame and validate activities that explore uncertain territory with the possibility to provide new ways of doing things and enhancing personal and collective experiences. Often the goals behind such projects in research institutions are validated with the search for knowledge, while in the private sector the focus is on potential profits, which in turn can be reinvested for even more innovation and even more increase in profits. This in effect is a loop that repeats exponentially at a faster rate each time. Innovation became a focus of development once it was clear that efficiency could be attained through the enhancement of human physical capabilities, most evidently in agriculture and war.9 This process eventually moved into the intellectual sector as computing began to be used to work in areas reserved for the human mind. This shift emerged specifically as a focus of labor, arguably, once the industrial revolution took hold.

To innovate is to “make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.”10 Innovation itself is the process of such action—a type of labor that in part functions on speculation, on testing for possibilities to make something different, usually with the goal to improve it. Such improvement often includes some type of allusion to time efficiency and easiness, which in turn leads to making things convenient for consumers. And here we have a connection to convenience. Innovation and convenience support each other to foment premises that appeal to individuals for multifaceted reasons: for the capitalist, to increase profits; for the worker to have better pay, and a better quality of life; for the creative person, new methods and approaches to produce what they envision. In general, for the human experience, innovation, on abstract terms, is associated with means to enhance enjoyment of life particularly in terms of leisure. The reality behind this socioeconomic equation is complex given that the basic relation of time and labor is defined by compression of production, which in turn demands more from the worker in the same amount of time.

Improvement of quality of life, remains the driving myth, the biggest promise: the carrot held in front of workers in order to encourage them to perform more labor in less time—to be more efficient, to the point that now the 9 to 5 work period is non-existent in most countries with well-established economies, and people work throughout the day well into the night. Technology makes this demand of time and labor possible through compression, which has proven to be a key driver behind technological development, which modularly reciprocates with innovation in order to increase experiences framed through convenience.

Compression

From the early days of domestication of plants leading to agriculture to the rise of surveillance overseen by machine learning algorithms, the drive for innovation under the auspice of compression rely on convenience as the binder of the informational economy that is optimized to be run by artificial intelligence. Compression, though not commonly thought of in this way, is a conceptual tool that has been implemented by humans since the emergence of culture. Just consider language, which is a tool of communication in its own right. Language, particularly written language, is used to express ideas concisely. Expressions emerge from a process of forming, shaping, and reshaping meaning; such signification is an idea in compressed form for efficient (convenient) dissemination. An argument, such as the one I am proposing in this essay, as the most direct example, is bringing together specific elements from culture I find important with the goal to provide a precise view on an issue that affects the world: in this case the way digital art and AI are intertwined with culture, politics, and economics, and how the “Algorithmia” exhibit at the MEIAC encapsulates this focus. In short, an argument when reduced to its more basic elements is a compression: a thesis statement of one or two sentences is a clear example of a concise intellectual position. It is an idea turned into an executable statement—and what else is an algorithm once it is set in motion? One declares it early on in the essay and executes it throughout.

To keep in line with denotation of terms, we must note that compression is defined as “the action of compressing or being compressed,” and “the reduction in volume (causing an increase in pressure) of the fuel mixture in an internal combustion engine before ignition.” Looking back at definitions from middle English, we can note “press together.” 11 The connotation in relation to innovation and convenience is found in the action of compressing: “flatten by pressure; squeeze or press: the skirt can be folded and compressed into a small bag.”12 The cultural understanding of the term, then, is that of compacting things. The appeal behind this process is that by doing so, functionality, ideally, is not compromised, or if it is, then it can be improved with later versions. This is the case with the computer, which began with room size devices such as the Manchester MK1, and ENIAC.13 Through constant innovation the computer was compressed so that now everyone can have one of the most convenient devices ever created in the history of technology: a smartphone; a multitasking machine that can do tenfold what engineers and mathematicians dreamed of during the 1940s, when computing became a materialized possibility with the goal to win WWII.14 In effect, the computer—following the dictionary definition previously cited—was pressed into “a small bag,” and will continue to be pressed until it becomes integrated not only within our bodies, but within our very human cells.15

Compression as a means of efficiency driven by convenience resulting in value that can be turned into wealth in effect is part of the general understanding of constant acceleration of material production as technology speeds up production in all areas of culture. Acceleration in cultural production has exponentially increased with technological innovation, and what comes after Moore’s Law is no longer a speculative subject.16

In more practical terms, data compression is a specific manifestation in computing of the general understanding of compression in culture at large. It specifically focuses on minimizing redundancy to make data efficiently transferrable.17 This in turn is what makes information across the Internet so pervasive, enabling it to flow with exponential speed that not only translates into convenient ways for people to have experiences and consume, but also, in turn, push for more innovation, thus keeping the loop at play with no end in sight. And here practical application of a theoretical concept makes way for a space in which a loop for critical reflection emerges, in which art functions as a mirror of our world.

Art

Art, similar to written language, is a form of compression executed by artists who want to compose a creative work. This takes place at a meta-level, given that art’s validation by default relies on the allegorical recognition of signs that already have cultural value. One could take this statement with a wider perspective and claim that all communication and expression are in effect allegorical;18 meaning that due to our human ability to recognize references of references within references across material and immaterial production, we are able to compress both forms and ideas in order to push for efficiency through constant innovation.

Art is ripe to do this because it specifically functions at a metalevel that is dependent on pre-existing cultural value. Art consists of combining elements that offer concrete points of entry into issues, time periods, and the exploration of ideas: entire stories can be recognized and recalled with the recognition of iconic symbols or signs included in compositions. Art compresses image, sound, and text; it combines them in order to present the unpresentable.19 Art is uniquely equipped to embed experiences into different types of recordings for reflection, revision, reorganization, and to recontextualize subjects of interest according to a person’s creative vision. Visual art, sound and music, time-based media, and performing arts thrive on this creative potential compression offers.

Many contemporary digital works, including the ones curated in the MEIAC exhibition “Algorithmia: Art in the Era of Artificial Intelligence” provide a critical glimpse at the way computing has shaped and continues to reshape our understanding of the world and ourselves. The works in “Algorithmia,” which range from 2001 – 2019 include animated gifs, art installations, digital prints, infographics, net art, software art, video games, videos, as well as WebVR Installations. Subjects of focus include cryptocurrencies, the environment, analytics of global economic flows, and the tradition of hacking among others. The exhibit provides an 18-year survey of digital art that engages creatively with automation and smart computing, sometimes by implementing specific algorithms, and at other times by making cultural reference and commentary on the computing process. The works in the exhibition demonstrate how artists find new ways to appropriate and repurpose convenience, innovation, and compression in order to create new forms for critical reflection with the very same objects of critique.

The disruptive possibility of AI becoming truly creative in its own right is not explored directly in any of the works of art included in the exhibition; this makes sense because, in reality, it simply is not technologically possible yet to have true artificial intelligence. At the moment AI, mainly in the form of machine learning, deals with self-training algorithms which are able to improve at focused tasks through trial and error, but the algorithm is unable to move beyond the framework that has been created for its limited task. For this to be possible we need to move into what is currently called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).20

The works in the exhibition make clear that critical distance from the subject of critique (perhaps the most revered reflective space for those invested in culture), as an important paradigm for art practice, functions modularly within the current global infrastructure. Critical distance in modular production is a bug in the system that supports individual reflection on the cultural, and socioeconomic implications of all things experienced at an ever-increasing speed. Art because of its ability to optimize itself as a medium that thrives on compression is able to remain relevant within the very system it continues to critique. Art appropriates and subverts innovation in order to question humans’ tendency to enjoy convenience, which often leads to ethical and moral conflicts that go against our own existence, while also supporting the annihilation of our very own planet.

 

Eduardo Navas

University Park, PA (Philadelphia), February 18, 2021

http://navasse.net/