Algorithms are impersonal, biased, emotionless, and opaque because bureaucracy and power are impersonal, emotionless, and opaque and often characterized by bias, groupthink, and automatic obedience to procedure. In analyzing algorithms, critics merely rediscover one of the oldest and most fundamental issues in social science: the pathology of bureaucracy and structural authority and power. Algorithms are not products of a “black box”; rather, they are the computational realization and machine representation of the “iron cage” of bureaucracy. As sociologist Max Weber noted a century ago, bureaucratic rationality consists of hierarchal authority, impersonal decision-making, codified rules of conduct, promotion based on achievement, specialized division of labor, and efficiency. Any kind of rational, cost/benefit thinking, however, presupposes a goal or objective. That goal may not always be in the interests of the individuals that a bureaucracy governs. Moreover, institutions may default to standard operating procedures even when doing so has counterproductive, harmful, and even absurd implications.
Today’s automation and data-driven programs are merely the latest and greatest of a long movement toward the automation, optimization, and control of social life—and this story begins not with a revolution in computing but a revolution in human understanding of social relations and governance. Sometime around the mid-19th century, scholars believe, the basic technology of social relations and governance shifted dramatically. Fueled by economic and philosophical thinking and sociological changes, some argue, the notion of society was upended and replaced with notions of utility, preference, and collective welfare. The notion of collective society was replaced by the image of an autonomous and self-interested individual who made rational choices to attain the objectively best outcome for him- or herself. Similarly, political governance became dominated by attempts to achieve social and political control through quantification, measurement, and rational bureaucratic processes. Such “scientific” measures would allow authorities to treat society as a machine that they could program and manipulate to achieve desired objectives. This is not a criticism as much as a simple historical and sociological observation. Such a shift also explains, after all, the origin, nature, and folkways of modern bureaucracy and how governmental and corporate metaphorical machines became slowly infiltrated by real machines.
Modern bureaucracy, as a form of power, was originally justified in terms of scientific and enlightened governance of society and optimization and control of corporate business processes. Another feature of bureaucratic and technocratic thinking was the assumption of paternalism. Whether it was early 20th-century thinking about the madness of crowds or trendy modern behavioral psychology influenced policy ideas about the importance of “nudges,” reformers believed efficient procedures and mechanisms could be designed to help otherwise hapless individuals make better decisions.
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Today’s automation and data-driven programs are merely the latest and greatest of a long movement toward the automation, optimization, and control of social life—and this story begins not with a revolution in computing but a revolution in human understanding of social relations and governance. Sometime around the mid-19th century, scholars believe, the basic technology of social relations and governance shifted dramatically. Fueled by economic and philosophical thinking and sociological changes, some argue, the notion of society was upended and replaced with notions of utility, preference, and collective welfare. The notion of collective society was replaced by the image of an autonomous and self-interested individual who made rational choices to attain the objectively best outcome for him- or herself. Similarly, political governance became dominated by attempts to achieve social and political control through quantification, measurement, and rational bureaucratic processes. Such “scientific” measures would allow authorities to treat society as a machine that they could program and manipulate to achieve desired objectives. This is not a criticism as much as a simple historical and sociological observation. Such a shift also explains, after all, the origin, nature, and folkways of modern bureaucracy and how governmental and corporate metaphorical machines became slowly infiltrated by real machines.
Modern bureaucracy, as a form of power, was originally justified in terms of scientific and enlightened governance of society and optimization and control of corporate business processes. Another feature of bureaucratic and technocratic thinking was the assumption of paternalism. Whether it was early 20th-century thinking about the madness of crowds or trendy modern behavioral psychology influenced policy ideas about the importance of “nudges,” reformers believed efficient procedures and mechanisms could be designed to help otherwise hapless individuals make better decisions.
- More Here
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