The impact of algorithms on the public sphere
The current technological context of hyperconnectivity brings significant challenges to the protection of fundamental rights and to contemporary ethics, with the capacity to impact, ultimately, democracy itself. In that context, the action of algorithms can be seen in a much broader and complex context of action and decision. Algorithms today not only predict upcoming best-seller books, but also suggest our future loving partners, influence our electoral decisions, make death threats, decide who should be imprisoned, and buy illegal drugs on the Deep Web. In this sense, it is not enough just to realize the ability of algorithms to act and decide as human beings, it is necessary to think about how the public sphere is being influenced by these agents capable of shaping, structuring and mediating the way we interact. The analysis of a public sphere, based on human communicative rationality, need new epistemological and ontological lenses to rethink assumptions about agency, transparency and normativity upon understanding the influence and interactions of those non-human agents, to ensure appropriate ethical guidelines to the advances of hyperconnectivity. The theoretical frameworks chosen for this analysis are Jurgen Habermas’s concept of public sphere and communicative action in contrast with the contributions of Karen Barad's theories about new materialisms, with the purpose of becoming an university paper.
Jake Goldenfein, The University of Melbourne
PUBLISHED ON: 14 Jul, 2017 - 14:31
In that context, the action of algorithms can be seen in a much broader and complex context of action and decision.
Not sure what this means.
In this sense, it is not enough just to realize the ability of algorithms to act and decide as human beings, it is necessary to think about how the public sphere is being influenced by these agents capable of shaping, structuring and mediating the way we interact.
So is this the project - the influence of algorithms on the ‘public sphere’? Could be very interesting - but you will need to narrow this down!
The analysis of a public sphere, based on human communicative rationality, need new epistemological and ontological lenses to rethink assumptions about agency, transparency and normativity upon understanding the influence and interactions of those non-human agents, to ensure appropriate ethical guidelines to the advances of hyperconnectivity.
As an early description of a project this sounds interesting, but it might be a little too early to be seeking comments on the idea as you have not put forward a thesis or position. I think you are across some interesting issues - but this reads more like an early project position paper or early research proposal than it does an abstract for an article. Would be good to see a little more developed and narrow in scope.
Péter Mezei, University of Szeged
PUBLISHED ON: 15 Jul, 2017 - 00:03
While I agree with Jake Goldenfein's points above, I need to add one more comment: the abstract refers to fundamental rights at the beginning, however, missed to elaborate on this issue. What fundamental rights concerns does the author have? Consequently, another question arises: would this paper be a fundamental rights (law) centered piece of work or does the author plan to focus on the social/technological aspects of algorithms?
Liam Sunner, Maynooth University
PUBLISHED ON: 21 Jul, 2017 - 16:25
Just a follow on from the other comments, what would be the scope of the challenges to fundamental rights protection? Would this a broad international focus or a specific legal order, and if the latter, how would the borderless nature of the internet impact this scope?
Marta Poblet Balcell, RMIT University
PUBLISHED ON: 22 Jul, 2017 - 14:41
The abstract proposes a topic of rapidly increasing relevance for the legal, political, and media and communication domains. In its current version, though, the proposal is written in rather generic terms as the previous comments note. The next iterations could select or focus on a more specific domain, geographic area or issue that deserves further analysis. For example, the Computational Propaganda project at the Oxford Internet Institute (http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/) has recently published a number of case studies on this topic covering different countries.
The abstract also suggests using Habermas’ concept of public sphere as one of the theoretical frameworks. In this regard, it might be useful to follow the debates on how this concept applies to the digital era and the challenges it currently faces (fragmentation, polarisation, filtering, manipulation, etc.). Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!