Today’s episode explores the historical and technological continuity of systematic harm. The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, argues that texts like the Malleus Maleficarum (Witch’s Hammer), an early instrument of standardised persecution made widely accessible by the printing press, established an architecture of violence that has persisted through the ages. This architecture of defining and eliminating deviation moved from theological justifications in witch hunts to medical and psychiatric diagnoses used against queer and neurodivergent individuals, and now manifests in modern algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs). The core claim is that new technologies, like AI, merely automate and scale old prejudices by ingesting and reproducing archives shaped by historical biases, transforming old hierarchies into new, hard-to-contest forms of procedural violence, such as risk-scoring and predictive policing. Ultimately, Dr. Hoerricks calls for recognition and disruption of this recurring pattern of standardised harm before it becomes inevitable within the algorithmic state.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/from-the-malleus-maleficarum-to-algorithmic

Let me know what you think.

The AutSide is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit autside.substack.com/subscribe