In general, blaming the algorithm is an indirect way of blaming software engineers.
From Facebook to the VW emissions scandal to Stanford’s vaccine allocation, people love narratives that blame engineers. I suspect this trend will only get worse as the general public realizes that engineers are now a highly compensated professional, similar to how lawyers are the butt of so many jokes.
Engineers have bosses, and they generally do what their bosses tell them to do.
So the responsibility should lie, as usual, with the people at the top, who set the direction for the company, not for low-level peons like engineers, who might be highly compensated, but the engineers don't set the direction for the company nor make the ultimate decisions regarding these algorithms.
But part of the tragedy of organizations is that responsibility tends to be diffused, so it's really hard to ultimately blame any one person.
There was a documentary (maybe called "The Corporation" or something) which showed some protestors outside some CEO's home, and the CEO's wife went out with some tea and cookies or something and invited the protestors inside their home to have a chat, and the CEO talked to the protestors and told them how helpless he himself was, as he was just part of the system with relatively limited ability to change it.
I'm not sure I buy that, and not sure the protestors did either, as the CEO still has enormous power. At the very least the CEO has the ear of the board of directors, and quite a lot of leeway as to how to run the business. They might not be able to change it all, but they can change a lot. Still, there's no denying that especially in a large organization no one person knows everything that's going on and can be accountable for absolutely everything, but leadership still exists and still is ultimately responsible.
"and the CEO talked to the protestors and told them how helpless he himself was, as he was just part of the system with relatively limited ability to change it.
I'm not sure I buy that, and not sure the protestors did either, as the CEO still has enormous power."
Precisely. Nobody should accept that kind of obvious nonsense.
People are put into positions to make decisions. So make better decisions.
Very few people are reading this as some engineer wrote an opaque piece of software that made this decision. They're reading it, based on what the article says, as we came up with a set of prioritization criteria which were flawed.
Yes, people love stories like the space pen vs the pencil. The supposedly educated engineer getting shown up by the clever average joe with common sense. There's always someone smarter than you, but see well actually they're not that smart because they're not street smart.
> Yes, people love stories like the space pen vs the pencil. The supposedly educated engineer getting shown up by the clever average joe with common sense. There's always someone smarter than you, but see well actually they're not that smart because they're not street smart.
And yet that classic example is also an example of people really not understanding the nuance of larger systems; in that specific case, there were concerns about graphite creating electrical issues in the ship's electrical systems.
I think it is similar to how certain people always feel they are being ripped off by their car mechanic. They were told one thing by marketing/sales and then reality turns out to be more nuanced.
Except that people are quite often ripped off by car mechanics. Whenever there is an information asymmetry some proportion of the individuals with more knowledge will take advantage of it. I know nothing about cars, so when a mechanic tells me my car needs a $1000 repair, I have to take them at their word or get a second opinion, which is usually more effort than I'm prepared to expend. That sort of imbalance is irresistible to some people in all walks of life, including auto-repair, sales, and engineering.
The twist with software engineering though is that the overly confident people tend to be the non-experts, who then blame the engineers for having poor communication skills.
From Facebook to the VW emissions scandal to Stanford’s vaccine allocation, people love narratives that blame engineers. I suspect this trend will only get worse as the general public realizes that engineers are now a highly compensated professional, similar to how lawyers are the butt of so many jokes.