Algorithmic Imaginaries: The Political Limits of Legal and Computational Reasoning

Abstract

As debates about how to promote a more egalitarian society have become increasingly salient, one approach that has gained traction is to inform socially consequential policy decisions using algorithms. Algorithmic reasoning suffers from many similar deficiencies as legal thought in the era of the “Twentieth-Century Synthesis,” which rendered questions of political economy, power, and structural inequality invisible or irrelevant. What might be the tenets of a radical algorithmic imaginary, and how might we bring about such a praxis?