New Books Network José Marichal, "You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem: Renegotiating the Socio-Technical Contract" (Policy Press, 2025)
Oct 21, 2025
José Marichal, a Political Science Professor at California Lutheran University, delves into the impact of algorithms on democracy in his provocative book. He highlights the unspoken socio-technical contract between users and tech companies, exploring how this trade-off compromises individual autonomy. With insightful analogies like 'AI slop', he critiques how engagement practices shape content and public discourse. Marichal urges for a shift towards creativity and play in digital spaces, warning against the dangers of algorithmic predictability.
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Algorithms As A Socio-Technical Contract
- Marichal reframes algorithms as part of a socio-technical contract akin to a social contract between individuals and platforms.
- Learning machine learning concepts (e.g., gradient descent) revealed how users and systems mutually optimize behaviors toward predictability.
Users Fuel AI Slop
- AI slop succeeds because users desire it; engagement stems from human appetites for comforting, easy content.
- Marichal urges we view platform harms as an interaction, not only a one-way corporate imposition.
Algorithms Reify A Limited Reality
- Algorithms create a reified 'ground truth' that users mistake for reality by curating and abstracting information.
- This curation reduces people's epistemic range and makes their worldviews narrower than offline nuance.
