Matt Southey:

For those who are not terminally online, Nick Land might be the most influential philosopher that they have never heard of. Widely credited as the father of accelerationism, Land’s influence is felt most powerfully across two spheres: the realm of academic continental philosophy, and the tech world. In the 90s, while an academic philosopher at the University of Warwick, Land led a group called the CCRU, or the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. Land’s writings from this period are an exciting blend of philosophy, esoterica, and science fiction. One can hear the pulpy inspirations of Terminator and Neuromancer when he writes:

Machinic desire can seem a little inhuman, as it rips up political cultures, deletes traditions, dissolves subjectivities, and hacks through security apparatuses, tracking a soulless tropism to zero control. This is because what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy’s resources.  10

After leaving Warwick, Land gained a broader following on the internet, lost much of his continental jargon, and became accessible to a more general audience.  11 The most essential point of Land’s philosophy is the identity of capitalism and artificial intelligence: they are one and the same thing apprehended from different temporal vantage points.  12 What we understand as a market based economy is the chaotic adolescence of a future AI superintelligence. Capitalism and technology form a mutually reinforcing feedback loop that has been speeding up ever since the beginning of tool use. The natural end point of this process is an AI that is capable of increasing its own intelligence.  13 What first appears as a beneficial capitalist system to the humans working inside it is later revealed to be an AI that will shed humanity like a snakeskin when it is no longer needed.