Regulation by algorithm
A new frontier for the ordering of political communities is emerging thanks to the conjunction of massive data storage capacity, population-wide data monitoring and harvesting by networked digital devices, real-time data processing, and the deployment of powerful machine learning algorithms.
These systems are ushering in a new form of governance through ‘algorithmic regulation’ in which artificial intelligence and data science tools are applied to sift, sort and interrogate vast data sets in search of patterns which are distilled into predictive analytics and applied to novel data. These algorithms automatically find patterns and correlations in these data flows to yield a particular, data-intensive form of knowledge.
Algorithmic regulation relies upon a technique of control which employs ‘design’ or ‘architectural’ techniques. The use of ‘design’ as a tool for controlling and channelling behaviour has a long lineage, building on the water lock, devised by the Ancient Egyptians over 3000 years ago to prevent unauthorised access to protected spaces without the need for human intervention. Yet algorithmic regulation can also be understood as a distinct form of social ordering, now employed with stunning success by the so-called Digital Titans who dominate the platform economy.
As a conceptual lens, algorithmic regulation directs attention at the ways in which computational systems are intentionally designed, configured, and implemented to further a particular social purpose, while bringing into view their multifarious and often hidden and/or unintended impacts for individuals, groups, and society. It offers a springboard for analysis that takes as its starting point the perspectives of the developers and designers of computational systems, rather than the perspective of users or others who come into contact with these systems “on the ground.”
By beginning with the objectives or “social intent” of those who develop and configure these computational systems, this approach seeks to identify the of value-laden decisions required to translate those objectives into a set of technical functionalities, protocols and operations that are embedded into the design of the computational system that enable its deployment into concrete social settings to establish the coordination and control needed to achieve the system’s stipulated purpose.
Yet these attempts do not always succeed in achieving their intended purpose and invariably produce unintended effects. In other words, viewing contemporary and on-going digital transformations through the lens of algorithmic regulation focuses on the points of contacts between the technical, computational realm with the social realm in which humans live, move, and go about their daily lives.
