Many have experienced moments where algorithms have made us uncomfortable or suspicious. In Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Rubel, Phan, and Castro outline the stories of teachers and citizens subject to the criminal justice system who face serious consequences at the hands of algorithms. With a focus on locating the a philosophical touchstone to these harms, the authors look at how ideas of autonomy and freedom are affected by algorithms. When algorithms afford those subject to their decisions no transparency to endorse its use or worse hide responsibility for their decision in a network of actors laundering their own agency, citizens are harmed and democracy is harmed. This book mount a forceful lens of what exactly algorithms in criminal justice, education, housing, elections and beyond can do to autonomy, freedom, and democracy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Dr. Alan Rubel is Professor and Director of the Information School at University of Wisconsin Madison.

Austin Clyde is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago Department of Computer Science. He researches artificial intelligence and high-performance computing for developing new scientific methods. He is also a visiting research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Science, Technology, and Society program, where my research addresses the intersection of artificial intelligence, human rights, and democracy.

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Alan Rubel et al., "Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems" (Cambridge UP, 2021)