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The Tyranny of Algorithmic Authoritarianism

posted by takyon on Sunday May 03 2015, @09:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the garbage-in-garbage-out dept.

tt0064177 writes:

Tim O'Reilly has advocated for the idea of algorithmic regulation - reducing the role of people and replacing them with automated systems in order to make goverment policy less biased and more efficient. But the idea has been criticized as utopianism, where actual implementations are likely to make government more opaque and even less responsive to the citizens who have the least say in the operation of society.

Now, as part of New America's annual conference What Drives Innovation Around the Country? Virginia Eubanks has written an essay examining such automation in the cases of pre-crime and welfare fraud. Is it possible to automate away human judgment from the inherently human task of governance and still achieve humane results? Or is inefficiency and waste an unavoidable part of the process?

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:41PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:41PM (#178248) Journal
    Laws get piled on top of laws. If one transitions to a computer-based law system, then what's the limits to what complexity can build up - especially if the regulators are selectively allowed to break the law in order to regulate? Even consistency can become extremely hard to implement.