2021: No ‘Fairness’ in the Harm Caused by Algorithms

My article in InnovationAus published on 15 April 2021.

PDF of the article can be found here.

Australia is racing into the next decades of the digital era wilfully blind and ill-prepared as to the impact of algorithms on its citizens.

And the speed with which government agencies are acquiring and applying powerful algorithm technologies, while at the same time the political mantra of “fairness” has become the very raison d’être for their use.

The widespread application of algorithms changes the relationship between the citizen and the state: opaque algorithms enabling policies of the reverse onus-of-proof and non-appealable processes that target and impact the most disadvantaged in society.

And the additive impact of algorithms is not known.