Unexpected subjectivities. Situated normativity and the computation of the unknown

This article critically examines contemporary computational technologies as political infrastructures embedded within digital capitalism. Moving beyond the notion of technological neutrality, it reconstructs the genealogy of algorithmic governmentality as a mode of power that operates through correlation, prediction, and pre-emptive modulation rather than norms, laws, or subjectivation. Drawing on critical political economy, science and technology studies, and recent debates on artificial intelligence, the article shows how algorithmic systems tend to deactivate subjectivity by transforming individuals into data profiles governed by probabilistic logics. At the same time, it argues against conceiving computation as a closed or totalizing regime. Engaging with Luciana Parisi’s notion of experimental axiomatics and computational undecidability, the article introduces the concept of situated normativity to describe emergent, non-foundational forms of regulation arising within computational environments. In this perspective, glitches, deviations, and computational limits become sites for unforeseen subjectivities and for a speculative ethics capable of reopening the political within automation.