Algorithmic Governance and Political Legitimacy

americanaffairsjournal.org

17 points·collapse··3 comments

The rationale offered is that automated decision-making will be more reliable. But a further attraction is that it serves to insulate various forms of power from popular pressures.

Who in their right mind would argue that? The benefit is that it's a lot faster. If machine learning worked as well as mechanical engineering, we would have a serious industrial revolution on our hands.

> If machine learning worked as well as mechanical engineering, we would have a serious industrial revolution on our hands.

True, but it can be non-obvious that algorithms can produce such problems.

Also an unexpected result from an algorithm can be compared to an unexpected result from an application of law, including a consequence of a contract. Like one can complain that an algorithm is wrong for whatever reason in a particular case, similarly one can complain that a law requires some unfair things in some case, or a contract leads to some actually non-agreed consequence.

For those interested in this topic, BBC's documentary All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a great watch covering everything from communes, and Any Rand's influence upon the founders of Silicon valley, and of course Algorithmic Governance.

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is a BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis In the series, Curtis argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity, and instead have 'distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.'"[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...

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