Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority, and has, I think, three critical characteristics.
First, it takes in material from multiple sources, which sources themselves are not universally vetted for their trustworthiness, and it combines those sources in a way that doesn’t rely on any human manager to sign off on the results before they are published. This is how Google’s PageRank algorithm works, it’s how Twitscoop’s zeitgeist measurement works, it’s how Wikipedia’s post hoc peer review works. At this point, its just an information tool.
Second, it produces good results, and as a consequence people come to trust it. At this point, it’s become a valuable information tool, but not yet anything more.
The third characteristic is when people become aware not just of their own trust but of the trust of others: “I use Wikipedia all the time, and other members of my group do as well.” Once everyone in the group has this realization, checking Wikipedia is tantamount to answering the kinds of questions Wikipedia purports to answer, for that group. This is the transition to algorithmic authority.
via www.shirky.com
Clay Shirky pokes at some ideas regarding how our thoughts on authority are being changed by software that mediates our understanding of the world.
Point one above sounds eerily like the packing of mortgage backed securities. Subprime loans were turned into top-rated investment vehicles because (in that case) the math could be done. In this instance, an amalgam of sites are rated highly because they share characteristics that allow them to be amalgamated. In each case, the quants rule.
CDOs obtained good results -- until their underlying flaw (assumptions of continued growth built into the model) blew them up.
Is there a cautionary tale in here?
No one really will really know what went into creating algorithmic authority once it has been embraced by groups, just as no one really knew what they were buying with CDOs. They became embedeed in the structure of the landscape. Unquestioned and unquestionable.
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I appreciate your sharing this idea. It is making me think of the Huffington Post along these lines -- not just as an extension of human authority but as a creation of a new type of authority. The difference is that there is a visible curator of content. But the question is: Are people trusting Ariana Huffington or the process embedded in her media property? Clearly the latter.
I imagine a similar process can be detected around adoption of other information technologies -- e.g., how did information delivered by newspapers become credible?
Susan Kuhn Frost
Posted by: SweetSue | November 23, 2009 at 05:23 PM