TY - BOOK

T1 - The Control Paradox

T2 - from AI to Populism

AU - Di Nucci, Ezio

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Is technological innovation spinning out of control? Within one week in 2018, social media was revealed to have had huge undue influence on the 2016 presidential elections in the United States; while the first fatality from self-driving cars was recorded. What’s paradoxical about these understandable fears of machines taking over control through software, robots and AI, is that often new technology is introduced for the very purpose of improving our control over a certain task. This is what Ezio Di Nucci calls the ‘control paradox’.Di Nucci also brings this notion to bear on politics: we delegate power and control to political representatives in order to improve democratic governance. However, recent populist uprisings have shown that voters can feel disempowered and neglected by this system. Through the notion of the control paradox, the author shows how this lack of direct control within representative democracies could be motivating populism and argues that a better understanding of delegation is a possible solution.

AB - Is technological innovation spinning out of control? Within one week in 2018, social media was revealed to have had huge undue influence on the 2016 presidential elections in the United States; while the first fatality from self-driving cars was recorded. What’s paradoxical about these understandable fears of machines taking over control through software, robots and AI, is that often new technology is introduced for the very purpose of improving our control over a certain task. This is what Ezio Di Nucci calls the ‘control paradox’.Di Nucci also brings this notion to bear on politics: we delegate power and control to political representatives in order to improve democratic governance. However, recent populist uprisings have shown that voters can feel disempowered and neglected by this system. Through the notion of the control paradox, the author shows how this lack of direct control within representative democracies could be motivating populism and argues that a better understanding of delegation is a possible solution.

M3 - Book

SN - 978-1-78661-579-4

SN - 978-1-78661-578-7

BT - The Control Paradox

PB - Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ER -