Are algorithms foolproof? Can they transcend human error and bias. The NewEconomy questions algorithms below.
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Since time immemorial, man has used religion, fortune-telling, talismans and blind faith when faced with difficult decisions. Similarly, mantras and finger-crossing have also been practised to appease the mind into making difficult choices. Yet nowadays these routines seem particularly antiquated and obsolete when most decisions are taken by personal devices and online services which appear tailor-made for us. Can we trust them?
Far from being neutral and all-knowing decision tools, complex algorithms are shaped by humans, who are, for all intents and purposes, imperfect. Algorithms function by drawing on past data while also influencing real-life decisions, which makes them prone, by their very nature, to repeating human mistakes and perpetuating them through feedback loops. Often, their implications can be unexpected and unintended.
and similarly….
First, algorithms act as part of a wider network of relations which mediate and refract their work, for example, poor input data will lead to weak outcomes (Goffey, 2008; Pasquale, 2014). Second, the performance of algorithms can have side effects and unintended consequences, and left unattended or unsupervised they can perform unanticipated acts (Steiner, 2012). Third, algorithms can have biases or make mistakes due to bugs or miscoding (Diakopoulos and Drucker as cited in Kitchin, 2017).
References:
Kitchin. R., (2017) Thinking critically about and researching algorithms,
Information, Communication & Society, 20:1, 14-29, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154087