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Topic: Moral Responsibility
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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.
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The Accountability Sink
Approx. 15 min read
Wend Osei's job is to be the human face of blame. When an algorithmic system harms someone, he signs the report, apologizes on camera, and absorbs the penalty, and he is very, very good at contrition. Over the years the line between performing responsibility and believing it begins to blur. Then a case crosses his desk in which a real person, with a license and a choice, actually caused a death, and he discovers the courts no longer have any language for anyone but him.