The Governmentality of Algorithms. On Governmental Companies and the Democratic State

Powerful and widespread algorithmic models pose new political questions. Algorithmic models enabled by big data and machine learning were prominently labeled as “weapons of math destruction” (WMD) by Cathy O’Neil last year. Her critique and label of algorithms as WMDs exemplifies a critical turn in recent debate on the influence of algorithmic models. Models that decide who is allowed to receive a credit or evaluate the performance of teachers in schools seem to play a powerful but poorly understood part in our lives. However, while these critical accounts show how most of these models are biased or hidden, they largely fail to grasp their political relevance. Therefore, the central political demand that is made in these debates is for transparent or ethical models. My contribution will show that the political problematic is not the hidden or unethical nature of a lot of algorithmic models. The problem is that the models and the companies that own them wield a power that is usually associated with the liberal state. To make this point and show the political problematic of algorithmic models I introduce Michel Foucaults concept of “governmentality”. With this concept Foucault sought to understand the specificity of the power exercised by the liberal democratic state. This state, he argued, is different from the rule of the king and the disciplinary rule of a Verwaltungs- or Policeystaat in that it governed its population. In sum, Foucault showed very convincingly that the modern state’s power is characterized by the government of its population. The right to the government of the population belongs exclusively to the modern, democratic state. With the perspective of governmentality we can see that the significance of powerful and widespread algorithmic models lies in the fact that they do, what Foucault thought of as the characteristic mode of power of modern states: algorithmic models govern populations. Google’s search engine is potentially able to nudge, to softly influence a population whose size is unprecedented in human history. Corporations like Google provide platforms for services, and—as Frank Pasquale rightly observed—want to do what governments do: they want to have a monopoly, and they want to decide on the regulation of basic services. In short, they want to govern. What Foucault called the “governmentalization” of the state can be applied to these corporations and their business models: they were “governmentalized” and are, in fact, governmental companies. We can eventually see how powerful and widespread algorithmic models force democratic governments to choose: They can either transfer their power to governmental companies like Google, Uber or Airbnb. Or they can acknowledge that these companies are seriously challenging their right to the government of the population. The demand for transparent or ethical models does not challenge the power of algorithmic models and governmental companies—it only tries to make their power more acceptable. Accordingly, this demand obscures the real problem which is that the democratic state is rapidly losing its exclusive right to the government of the population.