Simulation

The Matrix

The Matrix, as imagined in the Wachowskis' 1999 film, is an opaque technical substrate that governs by manufacturing the environment in which perception, evidence, work, and choice occur. Its warning reaches beyond deception: when claims against a system must be proved with records produced by that same system, apparent freedom can coexist with near-total infrastructural domination.

What becomes of autonomy when one technical substrate mediates perception, action, memory, and the evidence by which it could be challenged?

Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

James March's simulation makes a counterintuitive decision visible: teaching people the organizational code faster can improve them immediately while preventing the organization from learning what they knew. The paper turns exploration and exploitation into a conflict across time and groups, but its formal agents are not observed workers and later studies have tested several different meanings of ‘balance.’