Life by Algorithms
How Roboprocesses Are Remaking Our World
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Life by Algorithms
How Roboprocesses Are Remaking Our World
Computerized processes are everywhere in our society. They are the automated phone messaging systems that businesses use to screen calls; the link between student standardized test scores and public schools’ access to resources; the algorithms that regulate patient diagnoses and reimbursements to doctors. The storage, sorting, and analysis of massive amounts of information have enabled the automation of decision-making at an unprecedented level. Meanwhile, computers have offered a model of cognition that increasingly shapes our approach to the world. The proliferation of “roboprocesses” is the result, as editors Catherine Besteman and Hugh Gusterson observe in this rich and wide-ranging volume, which features contributions from a distinguished cast of scholars in anthropology, communications, international studies, and political science.
Although automatic processes are designed to be engines of rational systems, the stories in Life by Algorithms reveal how they can in fact produce absurd, inflexible, or even dangerous outcomes. Joining the call for “algorithmic transparency,” the contributors bring exceptional sensitivity to everyday sociality into their critique to better understand how the perils of modern technology affect finance, medicine, education, housing, the workplace, food production, public space, and emotions—not as separate problems but as linked manifestations of a deeper defect in the fundamental ordering of our society.
Contributors
Catherine Besteman, Alex Blanchette, Robert W. Gehl, Hugh Gusterson, Catherine Lutz, Ann Lutz Fernandez, Joseph Masco, Sally Engle Merry, Keesha M. Middlemass, Noelle Stout, Susan J. Terrio
Although automatic processes are designed to be engines of rational systems, the stories in Life by Algorithms reveal how they can in fact produce absurd, inflexible, or even dangerous outcomes. Joining the call for “algorithmic transparency,” the contributors bring exceptional sensitivity to everyday sociality into their critique to better understand how the perils of modern technology affect finance, medicine, education, housing, the workplace, food production, public space, and emotions—not as separate problems but as linked manifestations of a deeper defect in the fundamental ordering of our society.
Contributors
Catherine Besteman, Alex Blanchette, Robert W. Gehl, Hugh Gusterson, Catherine Lutz, Ann Lutz Fernandez, Joseph Masco, Sally Engle Merry, Keesha M. Middlemass, Noelle Stout, Susan J. Terrio
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction: Robohumans
Categories
Chapter 1. Automated Expulsion in the U.S. Foreclosure Epidemic
Chapter 2. Roboeducation
Chapter 3. Detention and Deportation of Minors in U.S. Immigration Custody
Chapter 4. A Felony Conviction as a Roboprocess
Emotions
Chapter 5. Infinite Proliferation, or The Making of the Modern Runt
Chapter 6. Emotional Roboprocesses
Surveillance
Chapter 7. Ubiquitous Surveillance
Chapter 8. Controlling Numbers: How Quantification Shapes the World
Hugh Gusterson
Categories
Chapter 1. Automated Expulsion in the U.S. Foreclosure Epidemic
Noelle Stout
Chapter 2. Roboeducation
Ann Lutz Fernandez and Catherine Lutz
Chapter 3. Detention and Deportation of Minors in U.S. Immigration Custody
Susan J. Terrio
Chapter 4. A Felony Conviction as a Roboprocess
Keesha M. Middlemass
Emotions
Chapter 5. Infinite Proliferation, or The Making of the Modern Runt
Alex Blanchette
Chapter 6. Emotional Roboprocesses
Robert W. Gehl
Surveillance
Chapter 7. Ubiquitous Surveillance
Joseph Masco
Chapter 8. Controlling Numbers: How Quantification Shapes the World
Sally Engle Merry
Afterword: Remaking the World
Catherine Besteman
Acknowledgments
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Notes
List of Contributors
Index