Browse the archive
Topic: Algorithmic Governance
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The Vacancy Rate
Approx. 27 min read
A municipal data analyst notices that a city's predictive welfare system has written off an entire apartment building during a lethal heat wave. What she does to fix it sets off a cascade she didn't anticipate — and raises a question she can't stop thinking about: what happens to people whose lives are too quiet for an algorithm to see.
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The Weight and the Lever
Approx. 22 min read
Eleven years ago, Sylvie received a letter from her insurer's actuarial contractor: she was legally prohibited from entering a specific grocery store. No explanation was given for why, or what might happen, or to whom. She obeyed. Then her estranged son took a job there, and the prohibition, which had never been anything she understood, became something she had to decide about.