The Black Box Society
“But what if the ‘knowledge problem’ is not an intrinsic aspect of the market, but rather is deliberately encouraged by certain businesses?”
This is literally EXACTLY what is happening and what has been happening for probably around 80 years. This is the bustling American Capitalist landscape with infinite gains and infinite returns on investment. Disinformation and misinformation is critical to avoiding government intervention. The language in these information protection laws does a lot of good on the part of the individual – without a doubt. This does not translate to companies very well and translates to mega corporations TERRIBLY in the sense that these companies act more like countries in their input, output, and control. The magnitudes of power are vastly different than the lemonade stand or the local burger chain. When this is scaled up internationally and connected to the tree of parent companies, these systems exist more as monsters than arrangements of workers and their superiors.
The era of blind faith in big data must end
There’s a considerable lack of oversight in these massive power structures in a way that’s frankly terrifying. These algorithms streamline our tendencies as they have been and as they are.
“There’s a lot of money to be made in unfairness.”
Why don’t algorithms regard for traits related to failure? Checking for bias or fallacy? The reason this isn’t done, is likely that it doesn’t garner maximum results. It’s not sexy, it doesn’t sizzle in an investors meeting. There’s nothing exciting about stats that don’t impress or coincide with expectation.
Automating Inequality
Systems of oppression are not abstract frameworks based on linking together ideas and individual phenomena – these were literal systems with an input and “empathy override” for the actual intended output. Not that these systems are created with this awful outcome in mind, however those with control over them know very well what the outcomes are and how they interact with other systems and dynamics. Not much more to say on this other than to point out the School to Prison Pipeline of the US education system. These systems aren’t just reinforced through the feedback loop, they’re reinforced because someone chose not to stop them and enjoyed the profits too much to care about the harm.
Opting Out Big Data
Algorithms focus so heavily on behavioral patterns that once an individual decides to not participate and obscure this footprint, they must be obscuring this for a reason. There must be a goal in the users mind that can’t be achieved without being inconspicuous. Unless people would like to not be watched. Unless it’s that simple. The concept of “having nothing to hide” is a dangerous point that has exploded across how data and surveillance are treated where the rights of the individual dissolve while the rights of corporations balloon. Capitalist dystopia here we come.
The Computer Says No
The machine demands data. It is all knowing, it is correct. It has a 98.961% rate of success as defined by a group of rich people who directly benefit from the machine. No, there’s nothing wrong with this picture.