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Jacob's avatar

Lately I have been railing against how corporations have become a way for people to make evil decisions without accepting any physical or moral accountability. For example, executives who decide for profit's sake to skimp on aircraft maintenance or railroad track inspections that lead to death face no personal consequences and, more importantly see no reason why they should.

And I realized that framing AI as a political ideology takes this "economics of alienation" to the next level: now the executive can not merely say "It wasn't me, it was the obligation to maximize shareholder value"; they can say "it wasn't me, it was the algorithm".

This philosophy of lack of accountability, of detaching individuals from the consequences of their choices is to me the fundamental flaw at the heart of... well, I was going to say "Western democracy" but that's a dubious expression, so whatever it is we live under now.

TL;DR: imagine a world where we could say to a police chief "yes, you can have algorithmic policing - but if turns out to be racist, you personally are liable. And by 'liable' we don't mean 'resign on a full pension'."

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