The technologies transforming our lives
June 7, 2017 6:42 AM   Subscribe

The design of everyday life (it's a book!) by [mefi's own] Adam Greenfield - "Quite simply, we need to understand that creating an algorithm intended to guide the distribution of civic resources is itself a political act. And, at least for now, nowhere in the current smart-city literature is there any suggestion that either algorithms or their designers would be subject to the ordinary processes of democratic accountability." (via)
posted by kliuless (2 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yup. Just saw this the other day: A pioneering computer scientist wants algorithms to be regulated like cars, banks, and drugs (Katherine Ellen Foley, Quartz)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:09 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I haven't read the book by Adam Greenfield but this excerpt doesn't say what his position is. The article referenced by Johnny Wallflower is about an early pioneer of the software age named Ben Shneiderman who has called for a "National Algorithm Safety Board" that would regulate systems that are "richer in complexity" that should have to adopt a new philosophy of design. I had to look up Shneiderman because I recognized his name but could not remember why. He has made several contributions to the early development of software design, his last significant accomplishment came in 1986 when he created the "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design". Ben Shneiderman is a sixty-nine year old college professor who lives in a world of maybes and possibilities. This idea should never happen. Who gets to decide which systems are "richer in complexity", who defines this "new philosophy of design" or better yet "the ordinary processes of democratic accountability". I just hope sanity one day returns to technology, Facebook is a distant memory and a strange hermit name Zuckerberg living on a sixty-two billion dollar mountain of money somewhere feverishly attempts to complete his version of the Bertram Russell "Principia Mathematica" called "Moderniza Democracia".
posted by egocentrick at 12:36 PM on June 9, 2017


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