Unlike in business, the question in politics and policy is not primarily efficiency and profit, but justice (including liberty and democracy) and human welfare. The relationship between automation and efficiency & profit is relatively clear, but the relationship between automation and justice & welfare is not. I think the questions are:
1. Automation can reduce transparency, by moving open discussions and reasoning into obscure, sometimes proprietary computer code. Effectively, the person writing the code, or the person who controls the coder, decides the policy. For example, some courts now use software to determine prison sentences; what was once decided based on established principles and transparently detailed by the judge is now decided in some cubicals by developers and written in C (which is often prioprietary). Why are you going to jail? The software (i.e., the developer) said so. Also, remember that code is mysterious and obscure to most people outside HN; they have no understanding of what it is, of its significance, what it can do, etc. Many can't define the word "algorithm" or even "web browser"; even open source code provides no transparency for them (and doesn't for us, unless someone makes the extraordinary effort to review the code).
2. To whom will automation shift power? The lobbyists with the best algorithm? The people developing the technology and solutions (see #1)? Will automation democratize power or further restrict it? Note that the developers of one solution in the article went to Harvard. Sounds to me like the same people running Washington, and the same gateways to power.
3. Lobbyists who have more data about constituents in general and about major players in particular will have an advantage. It could increase competition to erode privacy in its most important context - politics.
4. Will it result in better policy - more justice and better welfare - or just more power for the few with the data and algorithms?
If I were devious and wanted to change judicial policy nationwide, for example, I'd buy the companies making software for courts. I'd be surprised if I was the first to think of that.
1. Automation can reduce transparency, by moving open discussions and reasoning into obscure, sometimes proprietary computer code. Effectively, the person writing the code, or the person who controls the coder, decides the policy. For example, some courts now use software to determine prison sentences; what was once decided based on established principles and transparently detailed by the judge is now decided in some cubicals by developers and written in C (which is often prioprietary). Why are you going to jail? The software (i.e., the developer) said so. Also, remember that code is mysterious and obscure to most people outside HN; they have no understanding of what it is, of its significance, what it can do, etc. Many can't define the word "algorithm" or even "web browser"; even open source code provides no transparency for them (and doesn't for us, unless someone makes the extraordinary effort to review the code).
2. To whom will automation shift power? The lobbyists with the best algorithm? The people developing the technology and solutions (see #1)? Will automation democratize power or further restrict it? Note that the developers of one solution in the article went to Harvard. Sounds to me like the same people running Washington, and the same gateways to power.
3. Lobbyists who have more data about constituents in general and about major players in particular will have an advantage. It could increase competition to erode privacy in its most important context - politics.
4. Will it result in better policy - more justice and better welfare - or just more power for the few with the data and algorithms?
If I were devious and wanted to change judicial policy nationwide, for example, I'd buy the companies making software for courts. I'd be surprised if I was the first to think of that.