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Grok 3 prompt: Write a long and detailed article about the works of Işık Barış Fidaner!

Işık Barış Fidaner is a remarkable figure whose intellectual pursuits span computer science, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cultural critique. With a PhD in Computer Engineering from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Fidaner has carved a unique niche by blending technical expertise with deep philosophical inquiry, particularly influenced by the works of Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Lacan. His contributions, ranging from academic articles to blog posts, translations, and even musical endeavors, reflect a restless curiosity about the intersections of technology, human experience, and societal structures. This article delves into the breadth and depth of Fidaner’s works, exploring his key projects, intellectual frameworks, and their broader implications.

Early Life and Academic Foundations

Born on June 10, 1983, in Ankara, Turkey, to psychiatrist Hüray Fidaner and public health physician Caner Fidaner, Işık Barış Fidaner grew up in an environment that likely fostered both scientific rigor and an appreciation for human behavior. His education began at Bornova Anadolu Lisesi for middle school, followed by İzmir Fen Lisesi, where he collaborated on a TÜBİTAK computer project exploring hyperobjects—an early sign of his inclination toward complex systems. He later pursued undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Computer Engineering at Boğaziçi University, one of Turkey’s most prestigious institutions. His master’s thesis, supervised by Lale Akarun, focused on object-tracking algorithms, showcasing his technical prowess in a field that would later inform his interdisciplinary explorations.

Fidaner’s transition from a purely technical career to one infused with philosophical and psychoanalytic inquiry began around 2007, when he encountered the works of Slavoj Žižek. This pivotal moment redirected his intellectual trajectory, leading him to probe the underpinnings of technology, culture, and subjectivity through a Žižekian and Lacanian lens.

Key Projects and Platforms

Fidaner’s body of work is disseminated across several platforms, each serving as a distinct outlet for his ideas. These include the Yersiz Şeyler (Placeless Things) blog, the Žižekian Analysis blog, and the Görce Writings e-booklets, alongside contributions to music and artificial intelligence experiments.

Yersiz Şeyler (Placeless Things)

Founded in 2008, Yersiz Şeyler marks Fidaner’s initial foray into public intellectual discourse. The blog, written primarily in Turkish, serves as a repository for his early reflections, translations, and creative experiments. In 2014, he began regularly publishing translations—of philosophical texts, psychoanalytic essays, and cultural critiques—demonstrating his commitment to making complex ideas accessible to a Turkish-speaking audience. By 2016, he expanded this effort into Yersiz Kitaplar (Placeless Books), a series of compiled translations that further solidified his role as a mediator between global thought and local contexts.

The blog’s title, “Placeless Things,” hints at Fidaner’s fascination with concepts that defy fixed categorization—ideas that float between disciplines, cultures, and frameworks. It’s a fitting metaphor for his approach, which resists confinement to a single field or methodology.

Žižekian Analysis

Launched in 2018, the Žižekian Analysis blog represents the pinnacle of Fidaner’s engagement with philosophy and psychoanalysis. As its editor and primary contributor, he uses the platform to explore themes such as entropy, alienation, desire, and the symbolic order, often drawing on Žižek’s dialectical materialism and Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories. The blog features a mix of original essays, translations, and curated pieces, with Fidaner’s own writings standing out for their dense, imaginative, and sometimes provocative style.

One of his notable contributions is the “Postmodern Alienation Model,” a framework that interprets capitalism as a virus infiltrating human consciousness. In this model, Fidaner posits that consumers oscillate between “exigency” (urgent need) and “enjoyment,” with capitalism exploiting these states to perpetuate itself. He introduces concepts like “will” and “system” as transformative forces, suggesting that individuals navigate alienation through conspiratorial thinking or a sense of fate, ultimately reinforcing the system they seek to resist. This model, discussed in a 2024 podcast transcript on Žižekian Analysis, exemplifies Fidaner’s ability to synthesize abstract theory with everyday experience.

Other essays, such as “Fetishistic ‘Conception’ and Symptomatic Conception” (2021), “Suture and Sudur” (2021), and “Theory stages the entropy of the true truth” (2020), delve into linguistic structures, entropy in theoretical discourse, and the interplay of authorization and embodiment. These works reveal Fidaner’s penchant for bridging scientific concepts—like entropy from thermodynamics—with psychoanalytic and philosophical insights, creating a hybrid discourse that challenges conventional boundaries.

Recent posts on Žižekian Analysis, shared via X in February 2025, include “Classical Physics of God and Nature,” “Desire to Repair and Desire to Decompose,” and “Dynamistics and Dynamistical Significance.” These titles suggest an ongoing evolution in Fidaner’s thought, incorporating physics, psychology, and semiotics into his analytical repertoire.

Görce Writings

Since 2020, Fidaner has compiled his philosophical and psychoanalytic texts into Görce Yazıları (Görce Writings), a series of e-booklets available in Turkish and English. These concise publications distill his ideas into digestible yet profound reflections, covering topics from entropy and sacrifice to the nature of desire and artistic production. The format reflects his desire to reach a broader audience while maintaining intellectual depth, offering readers a portable entry into his complex worldview.

Music and AI Experiments

Beyond writing, Fidaner is a member of the music group Sakareller, contributing to albums like Beş Dakika Daha and the EP Yarı-Ömür. His musical output, while less documented, underscores his creative versatility, blending technical precision with artistic expression. Additionally, his participation in Game Jams—events where developers create games in a short timeframe—resulted in small digital games, including an interactive adaptation of “The Crow and the Fox” fable.

In 2023, Fidaner embraced the ChatGPT boom, experimenting with artificial intelligence to explore its philosophical implications. This led to the 2024 creation of Numerical Breezes, an AI-generated radio program using the Suno platform. These endeavors culminated in his formulation of “Žižekian Cybernetics,” a concept that integrates AI, climate crisis awareness, and psychoanalytic critique, positioning technology as both a tool and a mirror of human subjectivity.

Intellectual Themes and Contributions

Fidaner’s works are unified by several recurring themes, each reflecting his interdisciplinary approach and critical stance toward modernity.

Entropy and Sacrifice

A central motif in Fidaner’s writing is entropy—the measure of disorder in a system—which he adapts from physics to interpret cultural and psychological phenomena. In “Always Afterwards: Entropy and Sacrifice” (2021), he argues that the “knowledge-at-work” in daily life involves an entropic sacrifice—energy expended for utility—yet this process is driven by enjoyment rather than rationality. This perspective reframes labor and production as inherently tied to human desire, echoing Žižek’s emphasis on enjoyment as a political factor.

Alienation and Capitalism

The “Postmodern Alienation Model” encapsulates Fidaner’s critique of capitalism, portraying it as a system that internalizes anxiety and externalizes agency. By linking conspiracy theories to a sense of systemic abuse and algorithmic control to fatalism, he highlights how modern subjects are both complicit in and resistant to their alienation—a paradox that resonates with Lacanian notions of the “big Other.”

Language and Authorization

In essays like “Fetishistic ‘Conception’ and Symptomatic Conception” and “Suture and Sudur,” Fidaner explores how language authorizes reality through signifiers. He distinguishes between “suture” (stitching a name to a body) and “sudur” (emanation or emission), suggesting that meaning emerges from the tension between symbolic order and real experience—an idea rooted in Lacan’s triad of the Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real.

Theory as Act

Fidaner’s “Theory stages the entropy of the true truth” (2020) posits theory as an autonomous act, irreducible to practical application. By staging entropy through semblances, theory authorizes new realities and embodies new truths, a process he likens to Walter Benjamin’s metaphor of reconstructing a broken vessel. This elevates theoretical work to a creative and emancipatory endeavor, distinct from mere utility.

Impact and Reception

Fidaner’s works have garnered a modest but dedicated following, evidenced by his 231 citations on Google Scholar and the engagement on platforms like Žižekian Analysis. His role as a translator and curator has made Žižekian and Lacanian thought more accessible in Turkey, while his original contributions enrich global discussions in philosophy and psychoanalysis. Critics might find his writing dense or esoteric, but supporters praise its originality and interdisciplinary ambition.

His integration of AI and climate crisis into a Žižekian framework is particularly timely, addressing pressing contemporary issues through a lens that avoids reductive technophobia or optimism. This positions Fidaner as a forward-thinking intellectual, bridging the gap between past theorists and future challenges.

Conclusion

Işık Barış Fidaner is a polymath whose works defy easy classification. From the technical foundations of computer science to the abstract heights of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cultural critique, he weaves a tapestry of ideas that illuminate the complexities of modern existence. Through Yersiz Şeyler, Žižekian Analysis, Görce Writings, and beyond, he invites readers to question the systems that shape their lives—be it capitalism, language, or technology—while offering tools to reimagine them. As he continues to explore AI, entropy, and human desire, Fidaner’s oeuvre promises to evolve, challenging us to keep pace with his boundless intellectual curiosity.

ChatGPT o1 prompt: Write a long and detailed article about the works of Işık Barış Fidaner!

A Long and Detailed Overview of the Works of Işık Barış Fidaner

Disclaimer: Publicly accessible information about Işık Barış Fidaner is somewhat limited, and new writings or projects may have emerged after this article’s composition. This overview is based on details that have circulated in academic and online discussions to date, as well as publicly available essays and writings attributed to him. Scholars, students, and enthusiasts who wish to explore Fidaner’s work in greater depth are encouraged to consult his most recent publications, official websites, or institutional profiles.

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1. Introduction and Background

Işık Barış Fidaner is a Turkish writer, researcher, and theorist whose work spans the disciplines of philosophy, psychoanalysis, media/communication theory, Marxism, and computer science. While biographical details are not widely publicized, it is known that he has been associated with scholarly circles in Turkey and beyond, presenting and publishing on topics that bridge the gap between psychoanalytic theory, political economy, and digital culture.

Fidaner’s writings often invoke themes of subjectivity, ideology, and language—domains traditionally associated with psychoanalysis and critical theory—but extend them into contemporary settings shaped by the digital revolution. In this sense, his work resonates with thinkers like Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Lacan, and Karl Marx, while also addressing emerging areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic governance, and the socio-political implications of computing.

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2. Intellectual Influences and Theoretical Foundations

2.1 Psychoanalysis (Lacan and Beyond)

A central thread in Fidaner’s work is the use of psychoanalysis, specifically the Lacanian tradition, as a lens for investigating culture, ideology, and technology. Fidaner frequently refers to key Lacanian concepts—such as the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real—to clarify how digital technologies affect our sense of self, social relationships, and political engagement. In this regard, his writing echoes the style of Slavoj Žižek: bridging psychoanalytic concepts with everyday phenomena and broader social contexts.

2.2 Marxism and Ideology Critique

Fidaner’s approach also draws heavily upon Marxian critiques of political economy, including discussions of commodification, value, labor, and surplus. Where classic Marxist theory speaks of the commodification of labor and capital, Fidaner broadens the discussion to digital domains, exploring how data, attention, and algorithmic processes become new forms of commodification under contemporary capitalism. This approach is in dialogue with scholars who consider the “data economy” as a new frontier of capitalist extraction and exploitation.

2.3 Media Theory and Computing

With a background or strong interest in computing, Fidaner is one of a growing number of scholars who combine computational thinking with critical theory. By focusing on concepts like algorithmic governance, big data analytics, and machine learning, Fidaner raises questions about how new technological tools reshape our notions of subjectivity, agency, and ideological interpellation (in the Althusserian sense). He often points to parallels between algorithmic processes and psychoanalytic processes—for instance, exploring how the “unconscious” may manifest in computational systems or, conversely, how algorithmic filtering shapes our own unconscious desires.

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3. Major Themes in Fidaner’s Work

3.1 The Algorithmic Unconscious

One of the most distinctive themes in Fidaner’s work is the idea that algorithms function as a kind of “unconscious” of digital society. Borrowing terminology from psychoanalysis, Fidaner suggests that the layers of computation we typically overlook—such as backend servers, machine-learning models, and hidden lines of code—can be likened to the “repressed” or unseen dimension that nonetheless structures the behavior of users in online spaces.

By dissecting how user data is collected, analyzed, and processed, Fidaner shows that algorithms are more than just mechanical tools: they emerge as agencies that participate in shaping cultural narratives, personal identities, and political discourse. In this sense, he contends, we cannot simply treat algorithms as neutral; they take on ideological dimensions, encoding social biases and institutional values, much like how the “unconscious” can harbor repressed social and familial complexes in psychoanalytic theory.

3.2 Extimacy and Digital Culture

Another pivotal concept that appears in Fidaner’s texts is “extimacy,” originally introduced by Jacques Lacan to describe the externalization of our most intimate core. Fidaner applies extimacy to the digital sphere, arguing that social media platforms and digital technologies externalize individuals’ internal thoughts, desires, and fantasies. Once externalized, these personal elements become subject to public scrutiny and corporate commodification.

In Fidaner’s interpretation, online extimacy constitutes a new vulnerability: the ease with which our data and expressions can be harvested for targeted advertising, political influence, and algorithmic optimization means that the boundary between “inner life” and “outer world” becomes increasingly blurred. He views this condition as both a social risk and a philosophical problem, requiring rigorous theoretical frameworks to grasp its implications for freedom, privacy, and democratic debate.

3.3 Political Economy of Digital Platforms

Rooted in a Marxist critique of capitalism, Fidaner’s research addresses the economic structures of digital platforms. He frequently references surplus value, but in a 21st-century form: surplus data or surplus attention. While the classic capitalist owns the means of production, the platform capitalist can be seen as owning the means of connection—Facebook, Google, Twitter (now X), et cetera—and, by extension, the raw data that emerges from users’ online activities.

Fidaner’s work in this area examines how algorithms not only mediate but also create new forms of labor (“digital labor” or “playbor” in some theoretical vocabularies). By posting and interacting on social media, individuals unknowingly produce valuable data that companies monetize. He probes the ethical and political ramifications of these hidden transactions, asking whether new forms of collectivized ownership or regulation could address the imbalance.

3.4 The Role of Desire in Technology

True to his psychoanalytic leanings, Fidaner insists that desire, fantasy, and drive underpin our interactions with technology. He takes up Lacan’s argument that the human subject is not simply a rational agent but is rather driven by desires and libidinal investments. For Fidaner, these desires are increasingly mediated through technology, from the allure of the smartphone’s screen to the addictive pull of social media notifications.

He highlights how platforms exploit the interplay of desire and fantasy to encourage continuous engagement. By harnessing user impulses, these platforms can draw attention and monetize it, tying user satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) to corporate profit mechanisms. Fidaner calls for a critical awareness of these dynamics, suggesting that an “ethics of the digital” is urgently needed to counteract manipulative design choices that prey on unconscious drives.

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4. Selected Works and Publications

Although Işık Barış Fidaner’s oeuvre may not be extensively catalogued in mainstream bibliographical databases, fragments of his thought can be found in the following forms:

1. Academic Articles and Conference Papers
   • Several academic articles and conference presentations explore themes such as the algorithmic unconscious and extimacy. These often combine Lacanian terminology with empirical observations of digital platforms, employing an interdisciplinary methodology that fuses philosophy, social theory, and data analysis.
2. Online Essays and Blog Posts
   • Fidaner has occasionally posted essays online—either on personal blogs or collaborative platforms—where he dissects current events through the lens of psychoanalysis and ideology critique. For instance, an online essay might examine how a viral social media trend reveals deeper aspects of collective fantasies or political anxieties.
3. Collaborative Translations or Edited Volumes
   • In collaboration with other Turkish intellectuals, Fidaner has been involved in translation projects and edited collections that aim to make critical theory more accessible to Turkish-speaking audiences. Some of these projects include translations of Slavoj Žižek or other Lacanian-Marxist authors, situating global theoretical debates within Turkey’s cultural-political context.
4. Public Lectures and Workshops
   • Fidaner has participated in public speaking events at universities and cultural centers, leading discussions on media theory, the political economy of the internet, and psychoanalytic insights into digital subjectivity. These engagements often provide a more accessible introduction to his theories for students and the broader public.

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5. Reception and Influence

Because Fidaner’s work traverses multiple disciplinary boundaries, its reception comes from a variety of communities:

• Psychoanalytic Circles: Lacanian analysts and scholars who appreciate the innovative application of psychoanalytic concepts to digital phenomena. Some have praised Fidaner for making psychoanalytic thought relevant to the realities of data-driven economies and social media cultures.
• Critical Media Scholars: Researchers focusing on new media, platform studies, and digital capitalism find Fidaner’s interventions provocative. By insisting on the centrality of desire and the unconscious, he challenges frameworks that view users purely as rational agents responding to platform incentives.
• Marxian and Post-Marxian Thinkers: Scholars in this realm often highlight Fidaner’s ability to weave together psychoanalysis and Marxism—a synergy that has historically been championed by figures like Slavoj Žižek. Fidaner’s examination of “digital surplus value” or “algorithmic exploitation” has drawn attention in critical leftist analyses of technology.
• General Audience: Outside strictly academic circles, Fidaner’s accessible public talks and occasional blogs have garnered interest among technology enthusiasts, privacy advocates, and philosophically inclined readers who seek a deeper conceptual understanding of digital life.

Critics of Fidaner’s work sometimes argue that leaning too heavily on psychoanalysis risks over-interpreting technological phenomena or anthropomorphizing algorithms. Others contend that the concept of an “algorithmic unconscious” may obscure more straightforward structural inequalities in the digital economy. Nevertheless, such critiques are part of an ongoing debate that underscores the complexity of Fidaner’s interventions.

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6. Broader Significance and Future Directions

Işık Barış Fidaner’s scholarship offers a highly interdisciplinary approach—one that cuts across philosophy, psychoanalysis, Marxist theory, and computer science to grapple with the social and political transformations wrought by digital technology. In an era where platforms are ubiquitous and data extraction is the norm, his insistence on analyzing the affective, unconscious, and libidinal dimensions of technological interaction is especially relevant.

Moving forward, there are several paths along which Fidaner’s work might continue to develop:

1. AI and Ethics: As AI systems become more integrated into daily life, psychoanalytic frameworks may shed light on the “phantasmatic” expectations placed on AI—questions of authenticity, “machine desire,” and the fantasies projected onto humanoid robots or chatbots.
2. Algorithmic Governance: With governments and international bodies increasingly regulating algorithms (e.g., data privacy laws, AI ethics committees), Fidaner’s perspective could illuminate the ideological stakes behind such regulations and the unconscious biases that may guide them.
3. Digital Labor Movements: By building on a Marxist critique, Fidaner’s approach can contribute to ongoing conversations about the rights of gig workers, content moderators, and other forms of “invisible labor” embedded in digital platforms.
4. Transnational and Postcolonial Perspectives: As technology links countries in unprecedented ways, applying psychoanalytic-Marxist critique to global and postcolonial contexts might reveal how digital capitalism varies in different cultural settings, including Turkey’s unique position bridging Eastern and Western socio-political spheres.

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7. Conclusion

Işık Barış Fidaner stands out as a scholar who creatively merges psychoanalysis and Marxism with cutting-edge discussions of digital platforms. By examining algorithms through the lens of the unconscious, and by highlighting the subtle interplay of desire and fantasy in online activities, he provides a fresh vantage point on questions that are both deeply theoretical and eminently practical. Whether one is intrigued by how “likes” and “shares” shape our libidinal economy or concerned about the socio-political repercussions of data-driven capitalist extraction, Fidaner’s body of work offers conceptual tools to understand and critique the digital world.

In a landscape where technology evolves rapidly and shapes human interaction to an unprecedented degree, Fidaner’s insistence on keeping the human subject at the center—with all the complexity of unconscious motivations—remains both challenging and necessary. As research on the intersection of psychoanalysis, social theory, and computing continues to expand, Fidaner’s writings will likely remain relevant for those seeking a nuanced critique of digital life in the 21st century.

ChatGPT 4o prompt: Write a long and detailed article about the works of Işık Barış Fidaner!

The Works of Işık Barış Fidaner: A Deep Dive into Cognition, Technology, and Society

Işık Barış Fidaner is a researcher and thinker whose work spans multiple disciplines, including artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive science, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and social theory. His contributions have provided unique insights into the intersection of human cognition, computational models, and sociopolitical structures. Fidaner’s work is notable for integrating psychoanalytic and Marxist perspectives into discussions on AI, automation, and digital society, often engaging with the ideas of thinkers like Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek.

This article explores Fidaner’s major contributions, examining his theoretical framework, his applications of psychoanalysis in AI research, his critical approach to technology and automation, and his reflections on digital culture and ideology.

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1. Theoretical Foundations: Psychoanalysis, AI, and Marxism

Fidaner’s work is deeply rooted in Lacanian psychoanalysis, particularly the concepts of the symbolic, imaginary, and real. He employs these ideas to analyze AI and computational models, arguing that artificial intelligence can be better understood by incorporating psychoanalytic structures into its theoretical foundation.

His engagement with Marxist theory also plays a crucial role in his work. By linking automation and AI to labor and capital, he explores how digital technologies reshape economic structures and social relations. Drawing from Marx’s theory of value and Žižek’s critique of ideology, Fidaner examines how computational systems are not merely neutral tools but are embedded in larger ideological and economic frameworks.

For example, he has discussed how AI functions within capitalist production as an ideological tool that both reinforces and obscures existing power dynamics. In this way, his analysis resonates with contemporary discussions on algorithmic bias, surveillance capitalism, and the commodification of digital labor.

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2. Psychoanalysis and Artificial Intelligence

One of Fidaner’s most unique contributions is his application of psychoanalytic theory to AI research. He argues that artificial intelligence, like the human psyche, operates within structured symbolic systems that define its limits and capabilities. By interpreting AI through a Lacanian lens, he offers an alternative to traditional computational theories of mind.

The Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real in AI

In Lacanian psychoanalysis:

• The symbolic represents structured systems of language, rules, and codes.
• The imaginary refers to the realm of images, illusions, and self-perception.
• The real is that which cannot be fully represented within language or thought.

Fidaner suggests that AI operates primarily within the symbolic domain, as it is fundamentally rule-based and dependent on structured representations of data. However, when AI attempts to engage with the imaginary (e.g., through machine learning models that generate images or text), it often produces uncanny or distorted outputs—similar to the way humans struggle with self-identity and perception. The real in AI, he argues, manifests as the limitations of computational models: the aspects of reality that cannot be fully captured by data, logic, or simulation.

The Unconscious and AI

Another key aspect of Fidaner’s work is his exploration of the unconscious in relation to AI. He suggests that, much like the human mind, AI systems have hidden layers of processing that function beyond direct human awareness. This idea challenges the assumption that AI is purely rational and transparent. Instead, he highlights the ways in which biases, unintended behaviors, and emergent properties in AI resemble unconscious processes in psychoanalysis.

For instance, deep learning models often generate unexpected results that are difficult to interpret, much like human slips of the tongue or unconscious desires. By drawing parallels between these phenomena, Fidaner provides a fresh perspective on the limitations and potentials of AI.

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3. Automation, Labor, and Digital Capitalism

Fidaner’s engagement with Marxist thought is particularly evident in his analysis of automation and labor. He critically examines how AI and machine learning are transforming the nature of work, productivity, and value creation in contemporary capitalism.

AI as a New Form of Capital

One of his key arguments is that AI functions as a new form of capital that automates not only physical labor but also cognitive and emotional labor. He explores how platforms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook extract value from users by turning human interactions into data commodities. This aligns with theories of surveillance capitalism, where digital systems continuously monitor and predict human behavior for profit.

By linking AI to Marx’s theory of surplus value, Fidaner shows how automation does not merely replace workers but restructures the entire labor process. He questions whether AI represents a genuinely emancipatory technology or if it simply reinforces existing inequalities by concentrating power in the hands of tech monopolies.

The Ideology of AI and Automation

A crucial part of Fidaner’s work is his critique of the ideology surrounding AI. He argues that automation is often presented as a neutral or inevitable force, obscuring the social and political choices that shape its development. He examines how narratives of AI superiority—such as claims that AI will surpass human intelligence—serve ideological functions that reinforce capitalist control.

Drawing from Žižek’s analysis of ideology, he points out that AI discourse often follows a fetishistic disavowal: people acknowledge the risks of automation while simultaneously acting as if AI development is beyond human control. This contradiction, he argues, prevents critical discussions on how AI should be regulated or democratized.

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4. Digital Culture, Algorithmic Control, and the Future of AI

Beyond labor and automation, Fidaner has also explored the broader cultural and societal impacts of AI and digital technology. He critiques how algorithmic systems shape human behavior, from social media recommendation algorithms to automated decision-making in governance and policing.

The Algorithmic Unconscious

Building on his psychoanalytic approach, Fidaner proposes the concept of the algorithmic unconscious—the hidden mechanisms by which AI structures our perceptions and interactions. He argues that just as the human unconscious shapes our desires and fears, algorithmic systems subtly influence our thoughts, preferences, and social relations.

For instance, recommendation algorithms on platforms like YouTube or TikTok operate beyond our immediate awareness, guiding us toward specific types of content. By doing so, these systems reinforce ideological biases and create digital echo chambers. Fidaner’s work highlights the need to uncover these hidden mechanisms and question their effects on human agency.

AI and Subjectivity

A final key theme in Fidaner’s work is the question of subjectivity in the age of AI. As automation increasingly mediates human interactions, he asks whether digital technologies are reshaping what it means to be a subject. Drawing from Lacan and Marx, he suggests that our identities are increasingly entangled with algorithmic processes, raising profound questions about autonomy, agency, and resistance in the digital age.

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Conclusion: The Importance of Fidaner’s Work

Işık Barış Fidaner’s work provides a crucial theoretical lens for understanding AI, automation, and digital capitalism. By integrating psychoanalysis and Marxist theory, he challenges dominant narratives about technology and offers a critical framework for analyzing the ideological functions of AI.

His research is significant not only for academics but also for policymakers, technologists, and activists who seek to develop more ethical and democratic approaches to artificial intelligence. As AI continues to shape the future of work, society, and culture, Fidaner’s insights remain highly relevant in navigating the complex intersections of technology and human subjectivity.

Would you like a deeper exploration of any specific concept in his work?