The Tyranny of Algorithms

Algorithms are learning more and more about us while we seem to understand them less and less. Somewhere in the past few years we ceded some of our individual autonomy to ostensibly life-enriching algorithmic intelligence. Computational systems regularly tell us where to go, whom to date, what to be entertained by and what to think about (to name just a few examples). With every click, every app, every terms of service agreement, we buy into the idea that big data, ubiquitous sensors and various forms of machine-learning can model and beneficially regulate our lives.

Algorithms drive the stock market, compose and curate our music, approve loans, drive cars, write news articles, and make hiring and firing decisions. Are they in charge?

This Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 Futur Tense event explored the underlying tensions between law, technology, and culture in a moment where algorithms are beginning to define the boundaries of our own personal media bubbles.

Featuring David Auerbach, New America Fellow, software engineer, and writer for Slate; Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology; Nick Diakopoulos, College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park; Jenny Finkel, Machine Learning Engineer, Mixpanel, Inc.; Ed Finn, Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University; Jennifer Golbeck, Associate Professor, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park; Lee Konstantinou, Science fiction writer and Assistant Professor of English, University of Maryland, College Park; Gideon Lichfield, Fellow, Data & Society Research Institute and Global News Editor, Quartz; Laura Moy, Senior Policy Counsel, Open Technology Institute, New America; Christine Rosen, Future Tense Fellow and Senior editor, The New Atlantis; and, Jacqueline Wernimont , Author, How to Do Things with Numbers: Histories of Quantified Cultures and Lives; and Assistant Professor of English, Arizona State University.