Frank Pasquale – Black Box Society – chapter 1 (pp 1-11)
When we discuss obfuscation in our seminar it is always from our end to the big corporations. Thinking about it from the other end is even more scary given the fact that we may never be able to pull back the curtains on what is actually happening. Our attempts of obfuscation still occur on their territory, we think we are giving the middle finger to the man in the ivory tower, but in reality we are probably just a small anomaly in a huge sea of information. We already know the public atrocities many big businesses conduct and whenever the back end deals are exposed through things such as the panama papers they are big for the moment and then nothing ever happens.
Cathy O’Neill – The era of blind faith in big data must end (Ted Talk, 13m)
Algorithms have the connotation of efficiency. Big corporations definitely love endorsing the idea of algorithms being the future. O’Neill talks a lot about the idea of how we define success in terms of an algorithm and algorithms capability to be wrong. Formulas for math equations are taught because if used correctly will get your answers every time, algorithms are being taught in the same manner even when it applies to human work ethics. People who develop the algorithms go off of a standard that is totally foreign to their own experiences. Its scary to think about how people who have zero experience with what we are doing are defining how to do it “optimally”.
Virginia Eubanks – Automating Inequality (talk, 45m)
We have talked a lot about the idea of how systems, digital or not, can fundamentally be biased. Algorithms are not systems, it immediately makes me think of Hans Haake’s work as his work such as condensation cube demonstrates a system that is out of human direct manipulation. Condensation isn’t biased and it doesn’t care who you are or your background. People love to teach others that algorithms function in the same way. That its all behind a “machine learning program” that somehow that means that machine is not biased.
Janet Vertesi – My Experiment Opting Out of Big Data… (Time, short article)
Vertesi’s experiment to hide her own pregnancy was something I did read about before. I think about all the ways that she has to take extra steps to just function at the status quo. It’s always so dumbfounding when people brag about crimes on social media or even admitting to crimes via text messages because they think they are isolated within a group of people that they know.
Walliams and Lucas – The Computer Says No (comedy skit, 2m)
I know this is talking about how computers take our information and they want correct and true answers. But, the think that I am thinking about the most is the increasingly pathological driven our society is. The skit feels so unrealistic only because when people are sick they will undoubtedly google every thing they have and they will give any details that they think sites will need.
