Machinic Visibility in Platform Discourses: Ubiquitous Interfaces for Precarious Users

Abstract

Ubiquitous interfaces are becoming a key element in the promotional materials of tech companies. These new interfaces, normally associated with AR and VR systems, promise a future of frictionless technological interaction, allowing users to access any information and service from anywhere. Both factual and fictional, these systems are shown to enrich their users’ lives through machinic modes of vision and visualisation. In this paper, we frame promotional materials as elements in the discourses of Big Tech corporations that serve a strategic role in the expansion of their digital platforms. We analyse the symbolic role played by ubiquitous interfaces in the promotion of three digital platform services: Amazon’s Alexa Together, Microsoft’s Azure and Meta’s Metaverse. We claim that narratives of sensorial enrichment and empowerment—allowing people to not only see more, but better—are key in normalising the presence of platform interfaces in users’ lives. However, these narratives also advance what we call a regime of machinic visibility: a dependency of human vision on data processes and their visualisation. The imagined user of these services is a precarious one, unable to function or ‘see’ properly without a platform’s digital infrastructure. This precarity then justifies a relationship of dependence: the companies frame their products not just as enhancements, but as vital components of everyday life, implying that life itself is untenable without the intervention of platform companies. At the same time, Big Tech eschews criticism of its own role in undermining the social infrastructures and networks on which people depend.