Human Agency in the Age of Algorithm

 

Human Agency in the Age of Algorithm

Rahul Ramya

25th May 2025

 The Authoritarian Logic of Code

Neither digital technology nor Artificial Intelligence can be fully understood or controlled by their creators or users. Opaque by design and operation, these technologies function with an inherent authoritarian logic—eluding transparency, resisting accountability, and imposing their will through code and algorithm.

This logic is not abstract—it manifests in the daily lives of ordinary people across the world. Though the cultural and political contexts differ, a common thread emerges: the replacement of human judgment with automated control, often without appeal. What follows are four illustrative stories from different regions of the world—India, China, Europe, and the United States—that reveal the quiet encroachment of algorithmic authority into the fabric of human life.

India: When the Fingerprint Fails

Ramesh, a daily wage laborer from Uttar Pradesh, went to collect his MGNREGA wages through an Aadhaar-enabled payment system. His roughened fingerprints—worn out from years of manual work—failed to register on the biometric scanner. The village official, helpless in the face of machine refusal, told him, “The machine says no.” Despite possessing all documentation, Ramesh walked away unpaid, excluded by a system that recognized only perfect biometric conformity. The machine’s code had more power than any human intermediary.

Here, digital exclusion becomes a form of silent dispossession, reducing citizenship to a technical match rather than a lived identity.

China: Social Credit and Silent Surveillance

Mei, a university student in Chengdu, was quietly restricted from booking high-speed train tickets. She later discovered her social credit score had declined—but no one told her why. Perhaps it was an innocuous post on social media or her online associations. She had entered a system where behavioral conformity was silently rewarded or punished, and where surveillance systems learned to discipline without any explicit human command.

In this model, AI becomes a seamless extension of state ideology, enforcing obedience through ambient control.

Europe: Automation of Suspicion in Welfare

In the Netherlands, Sofie—a single mother and Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent—was flagged by an algorithm for suspected welfare fraud. No human had reviewed the decision before punitive action was taken. She was ordered to repay thousands of euros, lost her employment, and faced social stigma. Years later, investigations revealed that the algorithm disproportionately targeted people with dual citizenship and ethnic backgrounds.

In this case, algorithmic opacity reproduced systemic bias, automating discrimination in the name of efficiency and fraud detection.

United States: Predictive Policing and the Algorithmic Gaze

Tyrone, a Black teenager in Chicago, was repeatedly stopped by police. Unknown to him, he had been flagged by a predictive policing system based on neighborhood data, historical crime patterns, and indirect associations. The system didn’t accuse him of a crime—it simply categorized him as statistically likely to commit one. Tyrone had no way to contest or even know the rationale.

This reflects a data-driven recirculation of historic injustice, where the future is predetermined by the past, and algorithmic suspicion becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.

Comparative Reflections: Different Systems, Common Logic

Despite their cultural, political, and economic differences, these four examples share a common feature: the reduction of human life into data points, interpreted and acted upon by systems that evade scrutiny.

• In India and China, the systems are largely state-driven, though India’s Aadhaar infrastructure operates with technocratic legitimacy while China’s social credit system enforces overt behavioral compliance.
  
  

• In Europe and the United States, the systems often originate in liberal democracies but carry with them the covert reproduction of inequality and prejudice, hidden beneath layers of mathematical abstraction and legal bureaucracy.
  
  

• Across all regions, digital systems gain legitimacy not by consensus, but by default—they operate because they are installed, not because they are just.
  
  

What unites them is the authoritarian logic embedded in the structure of code and data, which allows systems to bypass moral reasoning, democratic deliberation, and contextual understanding. Decisions once mediated by empathy, discretion, or justice are now rendered final by the opacity of machine outputs.

When Machines Take Over Minds: The Hidden Dangers of Digital Technology and AI

We live in an age where digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are no longer optional. They shape how we shop, learn, travel, communicate, work, and even vote. From social media algorithms deciding what we see to AI tools deciding who gets a job or a loan, these systems are everywhere. But what’s not visible is how little control we actually have over them—and how much they control us.

Opaque Systems: When Even the Creators Don’t Know What’s Inside

Most people assume that if someone created a system, they must know how it works. That’s no longer true. Many modern AI systems, especially those based on deep learning, work like black boxes. Even the engineers who designed them often cannot fully explain why the system made a particular decision.

This lack of transparency, or opaqueness, is not just a technical problem—it’s a social and moral one. When a facial recognition system misidentifies a person, or an algorithm blocks someone’s access to government aid, people suffer—but the reason remains hidden behind layers of machine logic. In some cases, even the creators can only guess.

Malicious and Unimagined Consequences

Because we don’t fully understand these systems, they sometimes produce harmful and completely unimagined results:

   •   In the United States, predictive policing tools were introduced to reduce crime. But they ended up disproportionately targeting Black and Latino communities because the data fed into the system reflected historical biases of law enforcement. The AI didn’t just automate justice—it automated injustice.

   •   In the Global South, especially in countries like India, AI-driven facial recognition and surveillance technologies have been used in ways that violate citizens’ rights without consent. In Delhi, facial recognition cameras deployed during protests allegedly matched faces to police databases without transparency or safeguards, raising fears of mass surveillance.

   •   In Kenya, the use of AI-powered credit scoring apps has led to many poor people being denied loans—not because they are truly unfit borrowers, but because the system uses unreliable or unfair data, like how often they charge their phone, or whether they text “too often” at night.

These are not just mistakes—they are systemic issues caused by opaque, unaccountable technologies that are spreading across the world.

The Hidden Currency: Data and the Theft of Our Digital Selves

Whenever we go online, click a link, watch a video, or simply walk by a smart camera, we leave behind traces of ourselves—our preferences, fears, location, habits, and thoughts. These are what we might call our “personality prints.” And here’s the catch: these prints don’t stay with us. They are captured, owned, and monetized by others.

Big tech companies—mostly based in the Global North (like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple)—have built trillion-dollar empires by collecting data from users across the world, especially the Global South where data protection laws are often weak or absent.

   •   Your Google search history reveals your interests and health concerns.

   •   Your Facebook likes and shares expose your emotional patterns.

   •   Your voice commands to Alexa or Siri give away your speech habits and daily routines.

   •   Your location data from mobile phones creates a live map of your movement and lifestyle.

This data is often sold or used to create digital profiles that influence what you see online—from ads to news to political messaging. In this way, your private self becomes a product owned by someone else. You are no longer the subject—you are the raw material.

Global Inequality in the Data Economy

   •   In Africa, mobile internet users often access platforms like Facebook through “free basics” packages. These platforms then harvest massive amounts of user data, which is processed in servers located in the U.S. or Europe. Africa provides the data, but gets no share in the profit or decision-making power.

   •   In Indonesia, India, and Brazil, AI-driven platforms are pushing low-cost digital services, but in exchange, they demand access to personal data. Often, the people providing this data have no idea how it will be used.

This creates a new form of digital colonialism—where the Global South becomes a data colony for the tech empires of the Global North.

Losing Ourselves: How Technology Steals Our Power to Choose

The real danger is not just that others own our data—it’s that we start losing our ability to make independent decisions. AI systems are designed to manipulate our behavior—what to buy, whom to trust, even what to believe.

   •   You might think you’re freely choosing to watch a YouTube video or scroll through a TikTok feed, but often it’s an algorithm nudging you toward content that is addictive or emotionally charged.

   •   Political parties use data analytics to micro-target voters with different messages based on caste, religion, or gender. This doesn’t just inform—it manipulates.

Over time, we begin to live inside a world designed by algorithms. Our choices are predicted, shaped, and restricted—sometimes so subtly we don’t even notice. We lose our uniqueness, our ability to think critically, our freedom to act. That’s what it means to lose our personality prints to machines and corporations.

From Dialogue to Dictate: How Technology Has Replaced Human Interaction with One-Way Control

Before the rise of digital technologies and AI, most human systems—governance, education, trade, even public services—relied on interpersonal communication. A teacher responded to the student’s doubts. A government officer heard your grievance. A shopkeeper understood your needs. There was room for dialogue, negotiation, empathy, and correction.

Today, that human-centered, interactive system is being rapidly replaced by a technological ecosystem that is largely one-way and non-communicative. Algorithms issue commands, platforms dictate formats, apps decide what is visible, and users are left with a binary choice: comply or be excluded.

Where is the conversation?

The new digital environment offers speed and efficiency—but at the cost of flexibility, context, and mutual understanding. Here’s how the shift manifests globally:

Global North Examples: Efficiency Without Empathy

   •   In the United States, many welfare services have gone digital. Applying for food stamps or housing aid now involves navigating AI-based systems. These systems use automated verification tools that decide eligibility. But there’s no human to explain a denial, and no clear way to challenge it. Studies show that people are being denied basic services due to technical errors or rigid algorithms—with no one to talk to, no space for dialogue.

   •   In Europe, job seekers must often pass AI-based résumé screening tools. These systems scan keywords and eliminate applications automatically. Human recruiters no longer engage personally with many applicants. A job seeker might be disqualified without knowing why—sometimes just because the résumé formatting confused the AI.

   •   Banking systems across the North have replaced in-person relationships with algorithm-driven risk assessments. Loans, mortgages, and insurance policies are now governed by machine logic. If you don’t fit the model, you’re out—even if a human officer would have understood your unique context.

Global South Examples: Digital Governance as Exclusion

   •   In India, the Aadhaar-based welfare delivery system has digitized the public distribution system (PDS), pensions, and healthcare. But it also created barriers: a mismatch in biometric data, a power outage, or a faulty fingerprint scanner can deny people food or pensions, with no human officer to appeal to. For the elderly or illiterate, this becomes a digital punishment for being poor.

   •   In Brazil, AI-driven education platforms now guide public school curriculums and student assessments. But these systems do not account for the diversity of student backgrounds—from favela children to indigenous communities. There’s no scope for teachers to adapt lessons to local realities. The machine sets the pace, the students must follow.

   •   In Nigeria, online job platforms and automated credit scoring tools are replacing community-based systems of employment and lending. These systems prioritize “digital profiles” over personal reputation or trust—disrupting long-standing local networks and replacing social inclusion with algorithmic exclusion.

The Loss of Negotiability and Human Judgment

This new one-way ecosystem creates a dictatorship of design. There is:

   •   No feedback loop: You can’t ask the system why it acted a certain way.

   •   No room for emotion or understanding: A single mother seeking housing aid is treated the same as a fraudster if her paperwork doesn’t match.

   •   No space for context: A tribal farmer in Odisha or a grandmother in Minnesota is expected to navigate complex apps and systems—or be left out.

In traditional human systems, there was always some margin for human judgment, compassion, or at least conversation. But digital systems do not listen—they only operate. And users are expected to adapt or be shut out.

Digital Conformity: Either Obey the Algorithm or Be Excluded

Digital systems are not participatory. They do not evolve through community discussion. They are designed by a few, deployed by companies, and imposed on millions. Opting out is often not an option.

   •   If you don’t have a smartphone, you can’t book train tickets in India.

   •   If you don’t use an online wallet, you’re excluded from modern retail and mobility in Kenya or Indonesia.

   •   If you don’t use LinkedIn, your job opportunities shrink in the U.S.

   •   If you don’t comply with Facebook or TikTok’s content rules, your voice is buried or banned.

This results in a form of digital obedience, where survival requires conformity to systems that were not created by or for you.

 Reclaiming Space for Human Interaction in a Digital World

Technology was supposed to enhance human capacity, not replace human relationships. It was supposed to open up new pathways for dialogue—not close them down. But today, we are headed towards a future where we talk less, listen less, and understand less, because machines are doing all the talking—and none of the listening.

Unless we reclaim the space for human-to-human communication, the future will not only be digitized—it will be dehumanized.

How Digital and AI Technologies Enable Authoritarian Ecosystems

The transformation from human-centered, interactive systems to algorithm-driven, one-way control mechanisms creates fertile ground for authoritarian governance. This shift operates through multiple reinforcing pathways that concentrate power while diminishing individual agency and collective resistance.

Opacity as a Tool of Unaccountable Power

The Black Box Problem

Modern AI systems function as opaque decision-makers that even their creators cannot fully explain. This opacity serves authoritarian interests by:

   •   Eliminating the possibility of meaningful challenge or appeal

   •   Hiding discriminatory practices behind technical complexity

   •   Creating a shield of “algorithmic objectivity” that masks human bias and political choices

   •   Making it impossible for citizens to understand how power is exercised over them

Examples of Authoritarian Application:

   •   Predictive policing systems that automate racial profiling while claiming neutrality

   •   Social credit systems that punish dissent through algorithmic assessment

   •   Automated welfare systems that deny basic services without explanation or recourse

Data Colonialism and the Erosion of Privacy

Personality Theft as Control Mechanism

The systematic capture of personal data creates comprehensive surveillance capabilities that authoritarian systems can exploit:

   •   Complete behavioral profiles enable prediction and manipulation of individual actions

   •   Mass data collection provides early warning systems for political resistance

   •   Personal information becomes leverage for coercion and compliance

   •   Digital footprints create permanent records that can be weaponized against dissidents

Global Power Imbalances:

Digital colonialism concentrates data wealth in the Global North while extracting behavioral information from the Global South, creating dependencies that authoritarian governments can exploit through:

   •   Control over digital infrastructure and platforms

   •   Ability to cut off services and access

   •   Manipulation of information flows across borders

The Elimination of Human Mediation

From Dialogue to Dictate

The replacement of human-centered systems with automated processes eliminates crucial democratic safeguards:

Traditional System Characteristics:

   •   Negotiation and flexibility in implementation

   •   Human judgment that could account for context and exceptions

   •   Feedback loops that allowed for correction and adaptation

   •   Face-to-face accountability between officials and citizens

Digital System Characteristics:

   •   Binary compliance: conform or be excluded

   •   No space for appeal, explanation, or modification

   •   Standardized treatment that ignores individual circumstances

   •   Removal of human discretion and empathy

Manufactured Consent Through Algorithmic Manipulation

Behavioral Engineering

AI systems don’t just respond to preferences—they shape them:

   •   Recommendation algorithms create filter bubbles that limit exposure to diverse viewpoints

   •   Micro-targeting enables manipulation of political beliefs and voting behavior

   •   Addictive design patterns compromise users’ ability to make autonomous choices

   •   Gradual conditioning makes people accept increasing levels of surveillance and control

Democratic Degradation:

   •   Citizens lose the capacity for independent political judgment

   •   Public discourse becomes fragmented and polarized

   •   Collective action becomes harder to organize as communities are atomized

   •   Political participation is channeled through platforms controlled by private interests

Digital Dependency as Coercive Infrastructure

The Impossibility of Opting Out

Modern digital systems create dependencies that make resistance practically impossible:

   •   Essential services (banking, healthcare, education, employment) require digital participation

   •   Alternative systems are systematically eliminated or made economically unviable

   •   Non-compliance results in social and economic exclusion

   •   Citizens must choose between privacy/autonomy and basic participation in society

Authoritarian Leverage:

This dependency gives both private platforms and governments unprecedented power to:

   •   Punish dissent through service denial

   •   Enforce compliance through threat of digital exclusion

   •   Monitor and control all aspects of daily life

   •   Create conditions where resistance becomes economically and socially devastating

The Concentration of Technological Power

Oligarchic Control

The complexity and cost of modern digital infrastructure concentrate power in few hands:

   •   A small number of tech companies control essential digital infrastructure

   •   Governments can co-opt or coerce these companies to serve authoritarian ends

   •   The technical expertise needed to create alternatives is rare and expensive

   •   Network effects make it nearly impossible to challenge dominant platforms

Global Implications:

   •   Authoritarian governments can export their control models through technology

   •   Democratic countries become dependent on authoritarian-developed technologies

   •   International governance of digital systems remains weak and fragmented

The Erosion of Collective Capacity

Atomization of Resistance

Digital systems tend to individualize what were once collective problems:

   •   Social issues are reframed as personal optimization challenges

   •   Community-based solutions are replaced by app-based individual services

   •   Collective bargaining and organizing become harder in digital workplaces

   •   Traditional spaces for democratic participation (town halls, unions, community organizations) lose relevance

Weakened Civil Society:

   •   Intermediate institutions that mediate between individual and state are bypassed

   •   Digital platforms become the primary space for civic engagement, but on terms set by private companies

   •   Algorithms can suppress or promote content to influence political outcomes

   •   The capacity for sustained, organized resistance is diminished

Normalization of Surveillance

The Panopticon Effect

Constant digital monitoring creates behavioral changes even when surveillance isn’t actively used:

   •   Self-censorship becomes habitual as people assume they’re being watched

   •   Risk-averse behavior spreads as algorithmic punishment becomes unpredictable

   •   Innovation and creativity suffer as people avoid actions that might be misinterpreted

   •   Democratic discourse is chilled by the knowledge that all communication is recorded

The Authoritarian Ecosystem in Formation

These technologies don’t simply enable authoritarianism—they create the conditions in which authoritarian control becomes the path of least resistance. By eliminating human mediation, concentrating power, creating dependencies, and manipulating behavior, digital and AI systems construct an ecosystem where:

   •   Power flows upward and becomes increasingly concentrated

   •   Individual agency is systematically undermined

   •   Collective resistance becomes practically impossible

   •   Democratic institutions are hollowed out from within

   •   Citizens become data subjects rather than autonomous political actors

The result is not necessarily the dramatic authoritarianism of historical dictatorships, but rather a subtler form of control that operates through the architecture of daily life itself. This makes resistance harder to organize and easier for authorities to dismiss as anti-technology paranoia rather than legitimate democratic concern.

Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for developing strategies to preserve democratic space and human agency in an increasingly digital world. The choice is not between technology and freedom, but between allowing these systems to develop according to authoritarian logic or actively designing them to serve democratic values and human flourishing.

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