The Algorithmic Construction of Futures

 
Primary Texts by Elena Esposito: 

• The Future of Futures: The Time of Money in Financing and Society (2011) - Core text on algorithmic prediction and temporal construction.
• Artificial Communication: How Algorithms Produce Social Intelligence (2022) - Complete treatment of algorithms as social actors.
• Die Fiktion der wahrscheinlichen Realität / The Fiction of Probable Reality (2007) - On mass media and reality construction (German).
• "Social Forgetting: A Systems-Theory Approach" (2008) - On memory, forgetting, and digital permanence.
• "Algorithmic Memory and the Right to Be Forgotten on the Web" (2017) - Legal and functional arguments for digital forgetting.
• "Economic Circularities and Second-Order Observation" (2013) - On self-referential financial markets.
• "Artificial Communication? The Production of Contingency by Algorithms" (2017) - On how algorithms generate possibilities.

Exercise
For one week, keep an "algorithmic diary." Note every time an algorithm makes a decision that affects you: recommendations, search results, navigation routes, content feeds, autocorrections. Ask: Did this expand my world or narrow it? Did it predict my preference or create it? Did it show me something unexpected or just more of the same? At week's end, reflect: Are you using algorithms, or are they using you?