of the daily life of every citizen. But most citizens do not know these algorithms exist, let alone understand how they function. People do not need to understand, you might say. They should be happy if the garbage is picked up on time and no unnecessary costs arise for them as taxpayers.
Yet with decisions about imprisonment, access to the best educational path or governmental support, algorithms intervene deeply in the fundamental rights of individuals. This makes the software and its design highly political. Such seemingly intelligent systems should not only be debated behind closed doors or among academics but also in a broad social and political discourse – especially since even well-designed algorithms can discriminate. In the fight against crime, they can be self-reinforcing: The police find the most crime in the areas they investigate the most. Minor drug offenses, for example, common in most parts of a city, are identified disproportionately frequently in certain neighborhoods, leading to even more police checks there. Or in the case of the courts: When an algorithm sends people to prison for a longer period of time, they are more likely to remain unemployed after their release. They will also have less contact with family and friends and will therefore be more likely to become repeat offenders which confirms the algorithm’s predictions. Critics argue that all this reinforces the discrimination against and stigmatization of certain social groups.
As New York City shows, algorithms can solve tasks that are too complex for humans. They can be useful helpers for us and our societies. But whether or not they are successful depends on the goals we set for them. They are neither inherently good nor bad. Ideally, they result in more safety, justice and efficiency. At the same time, however, they can reinforce existing social inequalities or even create new forms of discrimination. It is up to us to set the course so that things develop in the right direction.
James Vacca now teaches at Queens College, City University of New York. His years on the City Council are over since its members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms. He proudly looks back on December 11, 2017, and his greatest legacy, the algorithmic accountability law, saying: “We were the first to politically concern ourselves with algorithms. Algorithms are helpful, it would be wrong to ban them. But we have to regulate how to deal with them. It is the political task of our time.”14
2Understanding algorithms
“The machine is not a thinking being, but simply an automaton which acts according to the laws imposed upon it.” 1
Luigi Federico Menabrea (1809–1896)
on Babbage’s Analytical Engine
There are too few people like James Vacca: politicians who are diligently fighting for transparency and ways to regulate algorithms. Even if the latter are not as widespread in other countries as in New York City, they have long since become our constant companions. For more than 30 million Germans, Facebook’s algorithms determine what content they see in their timeline and which “friends” the online network suggests to them. Fitness trackers have become everyday accessories, recording how we move and automatically encouraging us to do sports regularly. Companies are increasingly using robo-recruiting software to hire employees. And the public sector is also gradually discovering algorithmic systems, for example to assign slots at schools and universities as fairly and efficiently as possible, and to prevent burglaries and thefts.
German ignorance, indecision and discomfort
Despite all these examples, when it comes to algorithms, ignorance, indecision and discomfort prevail in Germany.2 According to a representative survey, almost half of the people in the country cannot say what the term algorithm means when asked; only 10 percent know exactly how algorithms work. Some 50 percent of respondents suspect at best the use of automated decision-making for dating portals or personalized advertising, while only a minority are aware of other areas of application, such as the pre-selection of job applicants or predictive policing. This ignorance is reflected in indecision: Almost half of the population has not yet decided whether algorithms bring more advantages or disadvantages – an extremely high figure in the world of opinion research. That shows that the public debate on this issue is still in its infancy. Moreover, the level of discomfort surrounding the topic also mirrors the uncertainty, with most respondents preferring human assessments to algorithmic ones. Almost three-quarters even advocate a ban on decisions made by software running on its own.
On the one hand, hardly any fears of daily interaction, on the other hand, a highly skeptical attitude – according to many studies, this ambivalent relationship characterizes the way Germans respond to digitalization.3 We have become so accustomed to some algorithms that we no longer perceive them as such. In the past, anyone who had to hit the brakes in a car on a wet road often found himself skidding. Thanks to ABS, sensors measure whether the vehicle is about to fishtail, and an algorithm automatically optimizes the rapidly repeated braking needed to safely slow the car. All the driver has to do today is put constant pressure on the pedal; it is no longer necessary to skillfully pump the brakes. According to a study carried out for Germany’s insurance industry, ABS and other assistance systems prevent what would otherwise be an unavoidable rear-end collision in approximately one out of every two critical situations.4
The algorithms hidden under the hood make their own decisions. Nevertheless, we hardly feel uneasy about it; on the contrary, every assistance system is one more reason for buying the car. Very few people are interested in how exactly software helps avoid collisions, change lanes and keep a safe distance from surrounding objects. On the other hand, we would probably feel much more discomfort if an IT company and not a judge were to decide on which prisoners should qualify for early release. How the government exercises its monopoly on power has a completely different impact on a society than even the most effective automotive tools.
A simple recipe
When the Muslim scholar Al-Khwarizmi taught his students written arithmetic in Baghdad in the 9th century, he could not have guessed that one of the most important terms of our time would be derived from his name. “Algorithm” means nothing more than a clearly formulated sequence of actions which is worked through step by step in order to reach a certain goal.
A baking recipe is also an algorithm. If you have the right ingredients and kitchen utensils and follow the instructions, you will get what you want: a delicious cake. Increasingly important in daily life are software algorithms, on which we focus in this book. They function according to the same principle. However, in their case it is not a human being but a computer that carries out the single steps.
A simple example: Suppose you want to sort a large list of numbers from the smallest to the largest. If a computer is to perform this task, it needs clear and, above all, unambiguous instructions as to what it has to do. The goal of “sorting numbers” must be broken down into individual steps. A software developer could use the so-called bubble sort algorithm for this purpose. In each step, the computer would compare adjacent pairs in the series of numbers and, if necessary, swap them if the second number is smaller than the first one. It must repeat this task until all neighboring pairs – and thus the entire sequence – are sorted in ascending order.
Just as there are countless baking recipes, there are many different types of algorithms. In addition to the sorting algorithm described above, the simpler ones include spell-checking tools in word-processing programs. Complex algorithms, on the other hand, are able to learn on their own. For example, an algorithm in a self-driving car could come to understand that a ball rolling onto the road is likely to be followed by a child, and it would therefore reduce the vehicle’s speed. Whether simple or complex, in this book we are interested in
