Governing by algorithms and algorithmic governmentality

We are governed by digital algorithms in multifarious ways. Yet, despite this diversity, this chapter argues that there is a shared discernible mode of governing enacted by digital algorithms. Such an 'algorithmic governmentality' creates a particular digitised form of knowledge, of ways of understanding governable subjects and spaces. Instead of individuals, 'dividuals' are algorithmically constituted via digitised categories and their futures calculated. Algorithmic governmentality is hence anticipatory, providing new governmental techniques. It governs algorithmically constituted futures through real persons in the present. In doing so, algorithmic governmentality progressively differentiates and fragments society, creating parallel worlds inhabited by in/dividuals, while also reinforcing and exacerbating social disadvantages and discriminations. The chapter suggests that to curtail the undesirable elements of governing by algorithms we can challenge the pre-eminence of digitised categories and knowledge, institute greater legal protections, and valorise collective modes of being.