3 - Overstepping and the Navigation of the Perceived Limits of Algorithmic Thinking

Summary

Published in the 7 March 2020 edition of the Financial Times, the private banking firm Investec ran a full-page advert that seemingly sought to defend human decision-making. Going against the apparently relentless tide of automation, it gestures towards the pitfalls of an irrational and inflexible form of algorithmic thinking. The advert poses what appears to be a rhetorical question: ‘Who would be most likely to grant you a mortgage? An algorithm? Or a human being?’ In the unlikely case that the reader is unsure as to their position on this question, the background is filled by a monochrome photo of a comfortably seated human – it is not clear if they are the imagined customer or a representative of the lenders.

This particular advert is suggestive of two related things. First, by responding to it directly the advert highlights the established materiality of algorithmic social ordering. In order to function its key message requires there to have been some form of existing encounter with algorithmic structures of some sort. Second, it is indicative of the way in which the very notion of the algorithm has moved into public consciousness (as discussed in Beer, 2017). The apparent rush towards being algorithmic, in which organizations seek to present themselves as devolving powers to the apparent neutrality, objectivity and heightened efficiency of algorithms, creates opportunities for others to present themselves as providing an alternative. This is not an alternative to being algorithmic, I would add, it is more often simply a different version of it. In other words, the push towards algorithmic properties creates a space in which the human can be knowingly and actively reinserted into these systems. In the case of the Investec promotion, the attempt is to appear to be algorithmic while not abandoning a sense of human values. In other words, it is an attempt to actively seek to present this as an organization that uses automation without appearing to be too automated. There is an active avoidance of that particular boundary. Investec are, it would seem, aiming to avoid overstepping the perceived limits of algorithmic thinking.