Algorithm: Making Human Slaves or Frees Them?

People, in general, in most countries, accept it as true that they don’t lay down laws that govern them but law is shaped by some outside power, such as, God, nature, history, or reason etc. Today, as a progressively more powerful force, artificial intelligence, or to say more precisely, algorithm is regulating our social, electoral and economic outcomes.

What is this algorithm is which is driving the development of artificial intelligence (and autonomous machines)? The word ‘algorithm’ actually comes from the 9th-century Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi. Among his many innovations, al-Khwarizmi’s work led to the creation of algebra and advanced the Hindi-Arabic numeral system that we use today. It is the Latin translation of al-Khwarizmi’s name to ‘Algoritmi’, combined with an etymological mash up with the Greek word for number (?ριθμ??, pronounced ‘are-eeth-mos’) that gives us ‘algorithm’ ("Etymology of algorithm", Chambers Dictionary).

Oxford University’s Dictionary of Computer Science defines an algorithm as a prescribed set of well-defined rules or instructions for the solution of a problem, such as the performance of a calculation, in a finite number of steps. It is common to describe an algorithm as being similar to a recipe, say, for cooking noodles: 1) boil water, 2) add noodles, and 3) stir. More precisely, the instructions need to be detailed enough for a computer to process, such as steps to play a game of tic-tac-toe: ‘If you occupy two spaces in a row, play the third to get three in a row.’ The work that al-Khwarizmi produced led to solutions for quadratic equations that are today applied to (among other uses) aircrafts taking flight and circuitry for computers and mobile devices. Despite these innovations, algorithms are playing a new role in the social-historical creation of societies; a contest between whether laws created by outside powers or humans themselves overpowers one another. This short write-up tries to see how algorithm’s use can establish human domination over our societies.

I don’t know whether it is good or bad but there is the possibility that technology could emerge to displace existing ideologies to form a new Data Religion. This new religion places all authority in data-driven decision-making and displaces religions that place all authority in God. It could allow liberal humanism which places authority of the individual in the self and free will, it can help state communism too which place authority in the ruling party. It could also support the evolutionary humanism which places authority in the survival of the fittest. So, what we get? Data can be the new outside power and technology, in particular, algorithm, which has the capacity to process data in intelligent ways, could render the ideological foundations of society.

In such scenarios, democracy might decline and even disappear. As both the volume and speed of data increase, venerable institutions like elections, parties and parliaments might become obsolete, not because they are unethical, but because they don’t process data efficiently enough. This may help rise an unethical world built on vast and unjust disparities in power and privilege.

Many of us might have heard the terms ‘smart cities’, ‘smart-cars’ and the Internet of Things etc. These are indicators that algorithm is gaining traction. But the question remains if this technology will facilitate the self-conscious creation of societies that produce equitable outcomes or enable new and worse configurations of old injustices. Incredible computer processing power is being applied to governance by outside powers.

But we can also imagine algorithm applied to facilitate autonomous governance by helping determine the best economic inputs and outputs for an ecologically-friendly society. The question now is who controls algorithm driven artificial intelligence, and whether it will know society and people better than we know ourselves or will it empower self-organisation and direct democracy in ways that consider the whole context of human flourishing and dignity as the foundation of a better world.