{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","id":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","uuid":"1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title":"If...Then Algorithmic Power and Politics","normalized_title":"ifthenalgorithmicpowerandpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2017054909","isbns":["2017054909","9780190493042","9780190493059"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":211,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/If...Then%20Algorithmic%20Power%20and%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1d3bd28e-c1ba-4af2-8580-60b32ef26053/search"},"page":{"printed_page":44,"pdf_page":54,"physical_index":54,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"86a54b6cd0270690cc3b3b848e6c9195fd0c97efb62b2624d34e1df7fa3ee963"},"chapter":"IF...THEN","content":"To say that something is a black box may not simply be a statement of facts. As I will discuss in this chapter, declaring something a black box may serve many diferent functions. Unlike the Socratic tradition, which sees the unknown as a fundamental prerequisite to wisdom, the black box renders the unknown an epistemological problem. The unknown—including the black box—is deemed problematic because it obscures vision and, ultimately, undermines the Enlightenment imperative aude sapere: “ ‘dare to know,’ ‘have the courage, the audacity, to know’” (Foucault, 2010: 306). For Kant, the Enlightenment philosopher par excellence, not knowing is characterized by immaturity, the notion that people blindly accept someone else’s authority to lead (Foucault, 2010: 305). Alas, if something is willfully obscured, the task for any enlightened mind would be to find ways of rendering it visible. Critics of the Enlightenment vision have often raised flags against the notion of exposing or decoding inner workings, as if there were a kernel of truth just waiting to be revealed by some rational and mature mind (a mind that is quite often seen as specifically male) (Chun, 2011; Foucault, 1980; Harding, 1996). In the Kantian tradition, the audacity to know is not just explicitly linked to rationalism but to the quest for the conditions under which true knowledge is possible. On the face of it, then, black boxes threaten the very possibility of knowing the truth.\n\nWhile threatening access to a seemingly underlying truth, the very concept of the black box also denotes a device that releases rational subjects from their obligation, as Kant would see it, to find a “way out” of their immaturity (Foucault, 2010: 305). As Callon and Latour suggest, “[a] black box contains that which no longer needs to be reconsidered” (1981: 285). In discussions on technical or commercial black boxes and transparency, one of the arguments often raised in defense of the black box is the necessity to keep details closed and obscured. In writing about trade secrets, historian of science Peter Galison (2004) makes the point that secrecy is legitimized as a form of “antiepistemology,” knowledge that must be covered and obscured in order to protect a commercial formula or the like.5 Indeed, it seems that the entire figure of the black box is premised on the notion of antiepistemology. Without secrecy, systems would cease to work properly. From a more technical  standpoint, making the inner workings obscure helps to remedy atempts at gaming the system. As Kroll et al. write, “Secrecy discourages strategic behavior by participants in the system and prevents violations of legal restrictions on disclosure of data” (2016: 16). Finally, from an engineering point of view, concealing or obfuscating large portions of code is a necessary feature of software development. As  Galloway points out, “obfuscation, or ‘information hiding,’ is employed in order  to  make code more modular and abstract and thus easier to maintain” (2006a: 323). Black boxing code, in other words, reduces both the cognitive load of programmers and enables the writing of new portions of the code, or the design new features or functionalities without having to think about every litle detail of how the systems work.\n\n44\n\nI F . . . T H E N","previous_page":43,"next_page":45}