The Algorithm of Power by Pedro Barrento
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Ya’ gotta serve somebody”

Politics is the rather messy process of reconciling conflicting interests. By definition this process is irrational since it involves establishing a criterion of rationality out of chaotic argument and subtle horse-trading. The more people there are involved in establishing this criterion, the messier the process, and the less satisfactory the outcome for everyone involved. So no one likes politics, particularly democratic politics that deal with the immense and immensely complex interests of entire nations. If the criterion of choice, of value, can be fixed - perhaps in different ways for different parts of the world thus accommodating various preferences about identity - the need for politics can be eliminated entirely.

An algorithm is a logical sequence of intellectual moves which directs action in any given set of circumstances. It is also completely rational in the sense that it never varies in its balancing of interests which are specified within the algorithm itself. It is effectively, therefore, a criterion of choice. An algorithm is therefore anti-political in its function. It solves the political problem elegantly. The rules of the game, as it were - what’s important - are set unambiguously and every situation is treated with absolutely objective equality.

Digital technology is really handy for creating algorithms. In fact that’s just about all digital technology can do - although that’s quite a bit given that algorithms control everything from how your car runs to how your food gets grown, processed and shipped to your home, to, of course, what adverts you get on your webpage. Algorithms are astoundingly useful - literally for the routine. But as far as formulating new interests or determining how spontaneously erupting interests should be reconciled, not so much.

So whoever it is who sets the interests which are inherent in any algorithm is really an awfully powerful person, a dictator actually. Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, was keyed on this very problem (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). What Vonnegut saw in 1952 is what Barrento saw in 2018, namely that in a world of machines, algorithms will become dominant, and he who writes the algorithm is the guy with everything to gain by ensuring his interests are represented. And what Vonnegut and Barrento also saw was that the interests of him who controls the algorithm can be entirely hidden in the complex structure of the algorithm itself. After all few people are competent to penetrate the dense logic of a hard-wired machine, even if they had access to it. And few do.

In The Algorithm of Power, politics has been replaced, paradoxically through idealistic politics (that is to say, the worst sort), by an all-pervasive computer operating system called The Network. The mystery is, naturally, who benefits and what those benefits are. We get a glimpse of an answer to these questions in the recent scandals involving Facebook, Google, and other high-tech players which have inserted their own self-serving algorithms into the internet, communications media, and the increasing number of digital devices upon which we all are dependent. The book is therefore making an obviously current political point: No matter how cumbersome, unsatisfactory, and irrational democratic politics is, the tyranny of technology promises to be a lot worse. Even more urgent perhaps is the book’s recognition that the threat isn’t climactic but agonisingly incremental. The political frog is floating happily in the technological pan as the temperature rises.

Bob Dylan was of course correct. The real existential question is: Who are you going to serve? I’m not sure of this book will help answer that question, however. The plot is somewhat overwrought and the translation from Portuguese is occasionally stilted and artificial. I’d probably look elsewhere for inspiration therefore. Nevertheless worth the investment.

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