DOI

Summary
An analysis of mathematics applied to social conditions, through the description of the impact of algorithms on contemporary life, illustrating the potential benefits and dangers deriving in particular from a socio-political and/or judicial utilization of algorithms, for example in healthcare, surveillance and crime prediction, where they may foster hidden incentives and perpetuate inequalities from the past. The unregulated use of algorithms thus becomes a faceless techno-authority which may be difficult to oppose. For that reason, while describing contemporary phenomena such as data engineering, data analysis firms, data brokers, micro-targeted advertising and the use of social media to manipulate people’s emotions, highlighting the risks and biases which can ensue, mathematician Hannah Fry advocates that governments should set up algorithmic regulating boards to control the data industry, along with a radical shift in the methods and manners of constructing algorithms, whose sequences must be made completely transparent, so that the process becomes both accountable and contestable from the first step on, guaranteeing that the possibility of challenging automated systems becomes a built-in function essential to their implementation.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The combination of data collection/analysis with sophisticated algorithms is an example of self-expanding complex systems which intersect with people’s needs, fears, desires and hopes , creating uncontrollable methodological loops that must become a part of interdisciplinary studies in order to achieve full awareness and redefine our interaction with algorithmic systems, “questioning their decisions, scrutinising their motives, acknowledging our emotions, demanding to know who stands to benefit, holding them to account for their mistakes and refusing to become complacent.”

Point of Strength
the potential for regulation of socially useful algorithms to ensure the rights of citizens regarding privacy, fairness, unbiased transparency, and ethical accountability.