Life by Algorithms: How Roboprocesses Are Remaking Our World explores the downsides, dysfunctions, and dangers of automated decision-making. Editors Catherine Besteman and Hugh Gusterson present a rich and wide-ranging volume featuring contributions from scholars in anthropology, communications, international studies, and political science. Through essays on topics such as phone systems used by businesses to screen calls, the impact of student standardized test scores on public schools’ resources, algorithms regulating patient diagnoses and doctor reimbursements, and impenetrable corporate bureaucracies, the book delves into how automation has reshaped various aspects of society. Despite being designed for rational systems, these roboprocesses often produce absurd, inflexible, or even dangerous outcomes. The contributors aim to bring sensitivity to everyday social interactions to critique modern technology’s impact on finance, medicine, education, housing, workplaces, food production, public spaces, and emotions. Join the call for “algorithmic transparency” as this book offers a necessary and sobering exploration of algorithmic governance.

“The Machine Stops,” E. M. Forster’s 1909 science fiction story about a human society collapsing due to its reliance on technology, serves as inspiration for this collection of unsettling ethnographic accounts. Life by Algorithms is described as “a necessary and sobering call to arms.” This volume provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between technology and society.

ISBN-13: 978-0226627731
Publication Date: May 23, 2019