Molecular Biopolitics and Artificial Production of Life: Biogeneration and Infogeneration Devices

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze from a philosophical reflection the unprecedented devices of biogeneration (genetics and DNA manipulation) and infogeneration (algorithms and Big Data) that characterize the contemporary modes of production and accumulation of both biogenetic and platform capitalism. The emergence of these devices has been possible due to the growing integration and mutual leverage between technoscience, bioeconomy and life sciences (biology, medicine, genetics), which has given rise to an extended, refined, and sophisticated biopolitical power that takes as its target the most intimate confines of the living. First, we outline the techno-scientific and socioeconomic conditions that make possible a style of molecular thinking that, on the one hand, guides the new trajectory of a molecular biopolitics on life and, on the other, creates a new biotechnological molecular park in which crowd a cast of forms of different sign. Secondly, we address the biogeneration device that, together with biomedical knowledge and biogenetic capitalism, shapes life until it becomes a source of biovalue. Finally, we analyze the infogeneration device that, articulated with algorithmic knowledge and platform capitalism, extracts data and information from genes, cells, and molecules to make them circulate within the circuits of biocapital and bioeconomy.