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The Rated Self: Credit Rating and the Outsoursing of Human Judgment  

Yi, Doogab (서울대학교 과학사 및 과학철학 협동과정)
Publication Information
Journal of Science and Technology Studies / v.19, no.1, 2019 , pp. 91-135 More about this Journal
Abstract
As we live a life increasingly mediated by computers, we often outsource our critical judgments to artificial intelligence(AI)-based algorithms. Most of us have become quite dependent upon algorithms: computers are now recommending what we see, what we buy, and who we befriend with. What happens to our lives and identities when we use statistical models, algorithms, AI, to make a decision for us? This paper is a preliminary attempt to chronicle a historical trajectory of judging people's economic and moral worth, namely the history of credit-rating within the context of the history of capitalism. More importantly this paper will critically review the history of credit-rating from its earlier conception to the age of big data and algorithmic evaluation, in order to ask questions about what the political implications of outsourcing our judgments to computer models and artificial intelligence would be. Some of the questions I would like to ask in this paper are: by whom and for what purposes is the computer and artificial intelligence encroached into the area of judging people's economic and moral worth? In what ways does the evolution of capitalism constitute a new mode of judging people's financial and personal identity, namely the rated self? What happens in our self-conception and identity when we are increasingly classified, evaluated, and judged by computer models and artificial intelligence? This paper ends with a brief discussion on the political implications of the outsourcing of human judgment to artificial intelligence, and some of the analytic frameworks for further political actions.
Keywords
Credit Rating; Surveillance Capitalism; Rated Self; Outsourcing; Algorithm; Artificial Intelligence;
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Times Cited By KSCI : 1  (Citation Analysis)
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