Comments on: A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority

By: göğüs estetiği

göğüs estetiği — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:04:13 +0000

I agree that we’re on the cusp of a major shift in how we view and assess authority on the web, and given the scope and interconnectedness of our online social networks, algorithmic tools will be essential to filtering the information to manageable levels.

By: Till Achinger

Till Achinger — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:09:50 +0000

“we trust spreadsheet tools to handle large data sets we can’t inspect by eye, and we trust scientific results in part because of the scientific method.”

From a sociologist’s perspective you wouldn’t call it trust. You trust in people, not in technology nor in processes. You trust in the programmer’s competence for building an accurate spreadsheet tool, you trust in the scientist’s ability to process an experiment in an accurate way, but you can’t trust their products. Why? Because objects do not have a choice. They can’t betray you because they do not intend anything.

Nevertheless, there is some kind of trust not bound to a single individual, system trust. It’s a generalization from single situations or personae representing a social role to everyone representing the same role, respectively their aggregate, a social system having its criteria who belongs to it and how to behave. Take school or healthcare. You (hopefully) make some good experiences in taking your teacher’s words for granted or consulting a doctor, and by time you take someone as an authority without specific social judgement, as long as he is standing in front of a blackboard or is wearing a white coat.

A more abstract variant of the same: Whom do you trust when entering a plane? When crossing a street? People filling their roles as a pilot, a flight controller or a driver properly. You don’t even meet them personally, but you trust your life to them. You do so because 1) it worked a thousand times before and 2) there is an endless connection of control securing it will continue working (turtles!).

This is where algorithmic authority comes back in, just like you said: system trust in Wikipedia’s, Google’s, whatever’s selection because it returned good results before and there are thousands of people using it at a time making the same experience.

This one made me think again. I look forward for more posts on algorithmic authority.

By: Kommunikationswandel: Die vier Subsysteme des Medienapparats — CARTA

Kommunikationswandel: Die vier Subsysteme des Medienapparats — CARTA — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:42:20 +0000

[...] und von Gatekeepern hin zu stärker maschinell, kollaborativ oder von beidem geprägten Filtersystemen. Es ist schwer vorstellbar, dass diese Bewegung wieder umgekehrt werden kann. Forderungen an die [...]

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Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:43:28 +0000

[...] A Speculative Post on the Idea of Algorithmic Authority – November 2009 [...]

By: Gab Goldenberg

Gab Goldenberg — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:08:41 +0000

Clay, you write that “looking to authorities is a way of increasing the likelihood of being right.”

Well, it depends what counts as an authority. As you point out, most schools reject Wikipedia citations, but Jimmy Wales has cited stats to the effect that Wikipedia is no more error-prone than Brittanica.

By: Ian Falconer

Ian Falconer — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:46:37 +0000

There is a fundamental problem with your idea. ‘Authority’ implies author and priviledges that author as content provider, even when the author is a distributed entity as in wikipedia.
While social science may use this concept in quite valid and legitimate ways, for physical science it is an anathema. There is no authority because there is no definitive answer, there is only veracity.

I posted my Veracity Values concept a few months ago. Its along very similar lines but does not assume that content provider is author.

http://metaversalmining.com/2009/03/02/veracity-values/
http://metaversalmining.com/2009/04/10/veracity-values-2/
http://metaversalmining.com/2009/09/05/veracity-values-redux/

By: Recent media links & thoughts at MasterMaq's Blog

Recent media links & thoughts at MasterMaq's Blog — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:43:17 +0000

[...] From Clay Shirky: …one of the things up for grabs in the current news environment is the nature of authority. In particular, I noted that people trust new classes of aggregators and filters, whether Google or Twitter or Wikipedia (in its ‘breaking news’ mode.) [...]

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By: Journalists as Cartographers « Groundswell

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[...] – many people long for a new kind of authority to help navigate the flood. Clay Shirky has written that “one of the things up for grabs in the current news environment is the nature of [...]

By: Professur für Algorithmische Komparatistik? Professur für Algorithmische Kunstgeschichte? « Erlebt

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