後人類處境的新異化問題：自我追蹤科技與竄寫主體

The New Alienation in the Posthuman Condition: The Self-tracking Technologies and the Interpolation of Subjects

本文以數位自我追蹤科技實作為例，探討後人類處境的新異化問題。所謂「新異化」問題指的是，在當代數據化與演算法普及的世界中，「我」如何被認識、又如何被演算政體之權力運作所影響與形塑的狀態。而數位自我追蹤科技實作包含了更廣義的量化自我運動，以及數位醫療的自我照護，兩者皆是由「使用者—數位自我追蹤裝置—演算法—資料庫」組裝運作生成的實作。不同於過去研究經常透過Michel Foucault的「生命政治」探究自我追蹤與自我照護實作中的治理與自我規訓，本文主張當代數據生活是一種演算政體，各類資訊科技、穿戴裝置、感測器、演算法遍及於日常的各種組裝行動中，使得演算政體的權力運作更細微地散布於各類異質行動者的相互影響之中。正是在這樣的演算政體中，我們作為使用者個體的分體化形成「資料自我」，凸顯了後人類處境的新異化問題。其展現為個體在「認識我自己」時將遭遇一種斷裂經驗。也就是，藉由分體化與異質組裝而生成資料自我，會持續處於變動的狀態，同時也受到演算法預測的「近似」邏輯所影響，最終因而導致的一種主體身分之「竄寫」狀態。

This paper attempts to discuss the“new alienation”in the posthuman condition. We refer to the“new alienation”as the situation in which our self-knowledge was affected by the power of the algorithmic regime. We use digital self-tracking practices as examples, which include the quantified self movement and self-care in digital health. Both are practices enacted by the assemblage of“users - digital self-tracking devices - algorithms - databases”. Past research usually focused on the governance and the self-discipline of the self-tracking practices under Michel Foucault’s theoretical frame of“biopolitics”. Different from them, this paper argues that we are living in the algorithmic regime in this datafied world. The exercise of power diffuses across daily activities assembled by various kinds of information technologies, wearable devices, sensors, and algorithms. The heterogeneous (human and nonhuman) actors are assembled to affect and be affected by each other. It is also in this algorithmic regime that the self-tracking practice users are“dividualized”and become“data selves”. We then argue that the“new alienation”is highlighted in these daily using experiences. It is a kind of experience of disjuncture when a user tries to“know himself/herself”. In other words, we call this condition the“interpolation”of subjects. The data selves as dividualized and assembled identities are open to continual revision and becoming which is in some way affected by the operation of various kinds of algorithms.