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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-the-inhumanity-of-it-all dept.

Algorithms tell you how to vote. Algorithms can revoke your driver’s license and terminate your disability benefits. Algorithms predict crimes. Algorithms ensured you didn’t hear about #FreddieGray on Twitter. Algorithms are everywhere, and, to hear critics, they are trouble. What’s the problem? Critics allege that algorithms are opaque, automatic, emotionless, and impersonal, and that they separate decision-makers from the consequences of their actions. Algorithms cannot appreciate the context of structural discrimination, are trained on flawed datasets, and are ruining lives everywhere. There needs to be algorithmic accountability. Otherwise, who is to blame when a computational process suddenly deprives someone of his or her rights and livelihood?

But at heart, criticism of algorithmic decision-making makes an age-old argument about impersonal, automatic corporate and government bureaucracy. The machine like bureaucracy has simply become the machine. Instead of a quest for accountability, much of the rhetoric and discourse about algorithms amounts to a surrender—an unwillingness to fight the ideas and bureaucratic logic driving the algorithms that critics find so creepy and problematic. Algorithmic transparency and accountability can only be achieved if critics understand that transparency (no modifier is needed) is the issue. If the problem is that a bureaucratic system is impersonal, unaccountable, creepy, and has a flawed or biased decision criteria, then why fetishize and render mysterious the mere mechanical instrument of the system’s will ?

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/05/algorithms_aren_t_responsible_for_the_cruelties_of_bureaucracy.single.html

 
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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:43PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Thursday May 21 2015, @05:43PM (#186118) Journal

    You might be on to something.

    I remember when I used to visit virtual spaces (MOOs, MUDs, etc) and I took an interest in how I might be able to program one (late 80s). I was never able to find any books at my local library about it. Eventually I noticed something odd about the Dewey Decimal system. I would have expected to find the books I was looking for in the 500s or 600s, but oddly, the system skips over 626 [wikipedia.org].

    It occurred to me that 626, if you square the 6s and add together with the 2, is equal to 74. I knew something was afoot. A martial artist I knew had an extensive collection of obscure techniques, some forbidden, on scrolls that were hidden in his family's dojo. One night during a new moon, I snuck into the dojo and located the 74th scroll. It spoke of a school of indiscriminate programming, or “hacking,” and the method to obtain access to the materials at the library I needed.

    A few days later, I hid myself in the library past closing. There is a certain book in every library in the world.* Each one looks different, but if you know about the school of indiscriminate programming, you will know that book when you see it. Apprehensively, I pulled the book forward and spoke the passcode: “shibboleet.”

    The entire shelf rose to reveal a secret section of the library for programmers only. These books are classified as 000-099, as most people begin counting at 1, but only programmers would begin counting at 0. I studied for what seemed like weeks only sneaking outside to get a drink from the library's water fountain or to get some Cheetos or Doritos from the vending machine.

    Finally, I obtained the dark secrets of the school of indiscriminate programming, and I was finally able access the hidden screens on my home computer that enabled me to program a short little text adventure of my own. I used to have a copy of it, but it's disappeared to the sands of time. It wasn't really that good anyway.

    * These are not to be confused with the Gideon's Bible found in every hotel room, but I've said too much already.

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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday May 21 2015, @11:11PM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday May 21 2015, @11:11PM (#186246)

    May I, please, subscribe to your newsletter?

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.