Massimo Durante - Computational Power: The Impact of ICT on Law, Society and Knowledge

We delegate more and more decisions and tasks to artificial agents, machine-learning mechanisms and algorithmic procedures or, in other words, to computational systems. Not that we are driven by powerful ambitions of colonizing the Moon, replacing humans with legions of androids, creating sci-fi scenarios la The Matrix or masterminding some sort of Person of Interest-like Machine. No, the current digital revolution based on computational power is chiefly an everyday revolution.

It is therefore that much more profound, unnoticed and widespread, for it affects our customary habits and routines and alters the very texture of our day-to-day lives. This opens a precise line of inquiry, which constitutes the basic thesis of the present text: our computational power is exercised by trying to adapt not just the world but also our representation of reality as to how computationally based ICTs work. The impact of this technology is such that it does not leave things as they are: it changes the nature of agents, habits, objects and institutions and hence it subverts the existing order, without necessarily generating a new one.

I argue that this power is often not distributed in an egalitarian manner but, on the contrary, is likely to result in concentrations of wealth, in dominant positions or in unjust competitive advantages. This opens up a struggle, with respect to which the task of reaffirming the fundamental values, the guiding principles, the priorities and the rules of the game, which can transform, or attempt to transform, a fierce confrontation between enemies in a fair competition between opponents rests on us.

Massimo Durante is Professor in Philosophy of Law and Legal Informatics at the Department of Law, University of Turin, Italy. He is coordinator of the Turin Unit of Research for the Law, Science and Technology Joint Doctorate: Rights of the Internet of Everything. His current research concerns issues of law and technology and digital governance from a legal, ethical and epistemological perspective.

ANTINOMIES

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This Series addresses the importance of innovative contemporary, comparative and conceptual research on the cultural and institutional contradictions of our times and our lives in these times. Antinomies publishes theoretically innovative work that critically examines the ways in which social, cultural, political and aesthetic change is rendered visible in the global age, and that is attentive to novel contradictions arising from global transformations. Books in the Series are from authors both well-established and early careers researchers. Authors will be recruited from many, diverse countries but a particular feature of the Series will be its strong focus on research from Asia and Australasia. The Series addresses the diverse signatures of contemporary global contradictions, and as such seeks to promote novel transdisciplinary understandings in the humanities, social sciences and creative arts.

The Series Editor is especially interested in publishing books in the following areas that fit with the broad remit of the series:

Subverting Consumerism

Reuse in an Accelerated World

Understanding Tourism Mobilities in Japan

Computational Power

The impact of ICT on law, society, and knowledge

The Algorithmic Unconscious

How Psychoanalysis Helps in Understanding AI

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First published 2021

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2019 - M ELTEM I PRESS SRL

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Original title: Massimo Durante, Potere computazionale

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ISBN: 978-0-367-56623-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-56624-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-09868-3 (ebk)

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.

George Orwell, 1984

This book is the brainchild of Maria Rosaria Taddeo, so my first warm thanks must go to her. Without her initial input and inspiration, I would never have undertaken this project. My sincere thanks also go to Giovanni Boniolo for generously welcoming the original version of the book into his series Filosofia della scienza e dintorni by Meltemi, as well as to Anthony Elliott for generously welcoming the present version of the book into his series Antinomies by Routledge. The reflections expressed within are the result of the long-standing dialogue and exchange of ideas with two dear friends, Ugo Pagallo and Luciano Floridi, whose valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript are gratefully acknowledged. Many of the examples and topics in the book were put to the test by a most exacting audience: my students. My thoughts on the subject of privacy and data protection were largely developed in the context of a series of lectures I held for the Master in Personal Data Protection Law for DPO. I would therefore like to thank Sergio Fo and Franco Pizzetti, who are respectively the director and the founder of this Turin-based MA program. My analysis of the impact of the Internet and digital ICT has naturally taken advantage of the valuable theoretical work carried out at the Nexa Center on Internet & Society in Turin, where I am honored to be a fellow, and a big thank you goes out to the co-directors and founders of the Center, Juan Carlos de Martin and Marco Ricolfi. I am also indebted to my co-fellows and friends at the Nexa Center for the many long and fruitful conversations we have had together: Eleonora Bassi, Carlo Blengino, Marco Ciurcina, Giancarlo Ruffo, Monica Senor and Massimo Travostino. Paola Aurucci and Jacopo Ciani have provided helpful ideas, advice and support. Further thanks go to Ludovica Paseri, with whom I discussed the basic thesis of the book and for her help in revising the manuscript, as well as to Laura McLean for her precious linguistic revision. The PhD program in Law, Science and Technology, where I serve on the faculty, has provided an arena for helpful discussion of critical ideas, considerations and analysis, and I would like to thank my colleagues Pompeu Casanovas, Mark Cole, Guido Boella, Michele Graziadei, Monica Palmirani and Giovanni Sartor. The section on the governance of algorithms arose from two different experiences: co-editing a special issue of