The algorithm, a building block of computer science, is defined from an intuitive and pragmatic point of view, through a methodological lens of philosophy rather than that of formal computation. The treatment extracts properties of abstraction, control, structure, finiteness, effective mechanism, and imperativity, and intentional aspects of goal and preconditions. The focus on the algorithm as a robust conceptual object obviates issues of correctness and minimality. Neither the articulation of an algorithm nor the dynamic process constitute the (...) algorithm itself. Analysis for implications in computer science and philosophy reveals unexpected results, new questions, and new perspectives on current questions, including the relationship between our informally construed algorithms and Turing machines. Exploration in terms of current computational and philosophical thinking invites further developments. (shrink)

Given a prime p, we exhibit a Horn sentence H p which expresses "the cardinality is not p" and has size O(p 5 log p).

Our experience of the present is defined by numbers, graphs and, increasingly, an algorithmically calculated future, based on the mathematical and formal reasoning that began with the rise of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Today, this reasoning is further modified and extended in the form of computer-executed, algorithmic reasoning. Instead of fallible human reasoning, algorithms—based on mining databases for ‘information’—are seen to provide more efficient processes, offering fast solutions. In this paper, then, I will follow Jan Patočka, (...) who suggests that we live in an age of supercivilisation, one in which human reasoning has become self-sufficient, ceasing to depend on the supernatural or cultural traditions that previously guided human lives. My argument is that Patočka’s analysis of supercivilisation can open up a different way to reflect on the ‘spiritual foundation of our times’. As Patočka says, to reflect on our situation does not mean that we can change it, but reflection can give us a new understanding that will open up different ways to think about our human future. (shrink)

One of the most common contemporary approaches for developing an ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) involves elaborating guiding principles. This essay explores the limitations of this approach, using the history of bioethics as a comparative case. The examples of bioethics and recent AI ethics suggest that principles are difficult to implement in everyday practice, fail to direct individual action, and can frequently result in a pure proceduralism. The essay encourages an additional attention to virtue, which forms the dispositions of actors, (...) directs them to valued ends, and encourages right action in particular situation to complement principles. Practices and professions like medicine or warfighting that already have rich traditions of reflection on virtue ethics will be especially fruitful fields for developing an AI ethics of virtue. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with thoughts for further research.

Statistical criteria of fairness are formal measures of how an algorithm performs that aim to help us determine whether an algorithm would be fair to use in decision-making. In this paper, I introduce a new version of the criterion known as “Equalized Odds,” argue that it is a requirement of procedural fairness, and show that it is immune to a number of objections to the standard version.

Situations in which patients lack medical decision-making (MDM) capacity raise ethical challenges, especially when the patients decline care that their surrogate decision makers and/or clinicians agree is indicated. These patients are a vulnerable population and should receive treatment that is the standard of care, in line with their the values of their authentic self, just as any other patient would. But forcing treatment on patients who refuse it, even though they lack capacity, carries medical and psychological risks to the patients (...) and the hospital staff. It is also often impractical to force some treatments, especially in the long term. For example, independent of the ethical “should” question, how would one force hemodialysis for the rest of a patient’s life, or force a surgery that requires weeks of post-operative physical therapy? In this article we present a novel algorithm that can help clinicians with ethical and practical decision making, with the goals of achieving the best outcomes for patients and reducing moral distress for their caretakers and clinicians. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's conception of the general form of a truth function given in thesis 6 can be presented as a sort of a trade-off: the author of the Tractatus is unable to reconcile the simplicity of his original idea of a series of forms with the simplicity of his generalisation of Sheffer's stroke; therefore, he is forced to sacrifice one of them. As we argue in this paper, the choice he makes – to weaken the logical constraints put on the concept (...) of a series of forms, thus effectively metaphorising that concept for the sake of upholding the N-operation's role of generating the series – is unfortunate. An actual expansion of a series of truth functions as defined in 6 would require either making decisions at each step (Anscombe) or outwardly rejecting the concept of a series (Sundholm). However, neither is faithful to Wittgenstein's own fundamental intuitions regarding the nature of logic. For this reason, a different trade-off that prioritises upholding the basic features of a series of forms over the simplicity of the operation that generates that series seems to be much more reasonable. We offer such a trade-off by developing the schema already present in the Tractatus (5.101). The key element of our alternative solution is the construction of an operation that can perform the task of producing all consecutive truth functions of a given collection of atomic propositions as an invariant difference between any base and its successor throughout the series. We define it as a composition of three functions (in an algebraic sense): the first turns a symbol of a given truth function into a binary number, the second increments that number, the third turns the result back into a symbol of another truth function. We also show how the operation can be defined by means of a different notation without invoking binary arithmetic. (shrink)

The logical flow graphs of sequent calculus proofs might contain oriented cycles. For the predicate calculus the elimination of cycles might be non-elementary and this was shown in [Car96]. For the propositional calculus, we prove that if a proof of k lines contains n cycles then there exists an acyclic proof with O(k n+l ) lines. In particular, there is a polynomial time algorithm which eliminates cycles from a proof. These results are motivated by the search for general methods (...) on proving lower bounds on proof size and by the design of more efficient heuristic algorithms for proof search. (shrink)

How do we understand the world around us? How do we solve problems? Often the answer to these questions follows a certain pattern, an algorithm if you wish. This is the case when our analytical left-brain side is at work. However, there are also elements in our behaviour where intelligence appears to follow a more elusive path, which cannot easily be characterised as a specific sequence of steps. Is Intelligence an Algorithm? offers an insight into intelligence as it (...) functions in nature, like human or animal intelligence, but also sheds light on modern developments in the field of artificial intelligence, proposing further architectural solutions for the creation of a so-called global Webmind"--Amazon.com. (shrink)

Based on a deliberative democracy, this book uses a hermeneutic-critical methodology to study bibliographical sources and practical issues in order to analyse the possibilities, limits and consequences of the digital transformation of democracy. Drawing on a two-way democracy, the aim of this book is intended as an aid for thinking through viable alternatives to the current state of democracy with regard to its ethical foundations and the moral knowledge implicit in or assumed by the way we perceive and understand democracy. (...) It is intended to stimulate reflection and discussion on the basis that, by addressing what we understand as democracy, we can inevitably influence the reality known as democracy. Democracy’s evident regression in today’s world makes this all too apparent: it has become a hostage to all kinds of autocracies and technopopulisms, which are supported to a greater or lesser extent by the current algorithmic revolution. (shrink)

The paper draws on an algorithmic criterion to demonstrate that the self is a composite, scattered, and patterned object. It also addresses the question of extendedness of the self-pattern. Based on the criteria drawn from algorithmic complexity, I argue that although the self-pattern possesses a genuinely extended aspect the self-pattern and its environment do not constitute a genuine composite object.

In this paper, I develop an algorithmic impossible-worlds model of belief and knowledge that provides a middle ground between models that entail that everyone is logically omniscient and those that are compatible with even the most egregious kinds of logical incompetence. In outline, the model entails that an agent believes (knows) φ just in case she can easily (and correctly) compute that φ is true and thus has the capacity to make her actions depend on whether φ. The model thereby (...) captures the standard view that belief and knowledge ground are constitutively connected to dispositions to act. As I explain, the model improves upon standard algorithmic models developed by Parikh, Halpern, Moses, Vardi, and Duc, among other ways, by integrating them into an impossible-worlds framework. The model also avoids some important disadvantages of recent candidate middle-ground models based on dynamic epistemic logic or step logic, and it can subsume their most important advantages. (shrink)

In this paper, we simulate the estimation of motion through an interframe difference detection function model and investigate the spatial-temporal context information correlation filtering target tracking algorithm, which is complex and computationally intensive. The basic theory of spatiotemporal context information and correlation filtering is studied to construct a fast target tracking method. The different computational schemes are designed for the flow of multiframe target detection from background removal to noise reduction, to single-frame detection, and finally to multiframe detection, respectively. (...) This enables the ground-based telescope to effectively detect spatial targets in dense stellar backgrounds in both modes. The method is validated by simulations and experiments and can meet the requirements of real projects. The interframe bit attitude estimation is optimized by using the beam-parity method to reduce the interframe estimation noise; a global optimization strategy based on the bit attitude map is used in the back end to reduce the system computation amount and make the global bit attitude estimation more accurate; a loop detection based on the word pocket model is added to the system to reduce the cumulative error. (shrink)

We prove constructively that for any propositional formula in Conjunctive Normal Form, we can either find a satisfying assignment of true and false to its variables, or a refutation of showing that it is unsatisfiable. This refutation is a resolution proof of ¬. From the formalization of our proof in Coq, we extract Robinson’s famous resolution algorithm as a Haskell program correct by construction. The account is an example of the genre of highly readable formalized mathematics.

This paper explores how political theory may help us map algorithmic logics against different visions of the political. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s theories of agonistic pluralism, this paper depicts algorithms in public life in ten distinct scenes, in order to ask the question, what kinds of politics do they instantiate? Algorithms are working within highly contested online spaces of public discourse, such as YouTube and Facebook, where incompatible perspectives coexist. Yet algorithms are designed to produce clear “winners” from information contests, (...) often with little visibility or accountability for how those contests are designed. In isolation, many of these algorithms seem the opposite of agonistic: much of the complexity of search, ranking, and recommendation algorithms is nonnegotiable and kept far from view, inside an algorithmic “black box.” But what if we widen our perspective? This paper suggests agonistic pluralism as both a design ideal for engineers and a provocation to understand algorithms in a broader social context: rather than focusing on the calculations in isolation, we need to account for the spaces of contestation where they operate. (shrink)

The impact of machine learning in healthcare on patient informed consent is now the subject of significant inquiry in bioethics. However, the topic has predominantly been considered in the context of black box diagnostic or treatment recommendation algorithms. The impact of machine learning involved in healthcare resource allocation on patient consent remains undertheorized. This paper will establish where patient consent is relevant in healthcare resource allocation, before exploring the impact on informed consent from the introduction of black box machine learning (...) into resource allocation. It will then consider the arguments for informing patients about the use of machine learning in resource allocation, before exploring the challenge of whether individual patients could principally contest algorithmic prioritization decisions involving black box machine learning. Finally, this paper will examine how different forms of opacity in machine learning involved in resource allocation could be a barrier to patient consent to clinical decision-making in different healthcare contexts. (shrink)

Visual cryptography is a cryptographic technique that allows visual information to be encrypted so that the human optical system can perform the decryption without any cryptographic computation. The halftone visual cryptography scheme (HVCS) is a type of visual cryptography (VC) that encodes the secret image into halftone images to produce secure and meaningful shares. However, the HVC scheme has many unsolved problems, such as pixel expansion, low contrast, cross-interference problem, and difficulty in managing share images. This article aims to enhance (...) the visual quality and avoid the problems of cross-interference and pixel expansion of the share images. It introduces a novel optimization of color halftone visual cryptography (OCHVC) scheme by using two proposed techniques: hash codebook and construction techniques. The new techniques distribute the information pixels of a secret image into a halftone cover image randomly based on a bat optimization algorithm. The results show that these techniques have enhanced security levels and make the proposed OCHVC scheme more robust against different attacks. The OCHVC scheme achieves mean squared error (MSE) of 95.0%, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 28.3%, normalized cross correlation (NCC) of 99.4%, and universal quality index (UQI) of 99.3% on average for the six shares. Subsequently, the experiment results based on image quality metrics show improvement in size, visual quality, and security for retrieved secret images and meaningful share images of the OCHVC scheme. Comparing the proposed OCHVC with some related works shows that the OCHVC scheme is more effective and secure. (shrink)

A best-seller in its French edition, the construction of this book is original and its success in the French market demonstrates its appeal. It is based on three principles: 1. An organization of the chapters by families of algorithms : exhaustive search, divide and conquer, etc. At the contrary, there is no chapter only devoted to a systematic exposure of, say, algorithms on strings. Some of these will be found in different chapters. 2. For each family of algorithms, an introduction (...) is given to the mathematical principles and the issues of a rigorous design, with one or two pedagogical examples. 3. For its most part, the book details 150 problems, spanning on seven families of algorithms. For each problem, a precise and progressive statement is given. More important, a complete solution is detailed, with respect to the design principles that have been presented ; often, some classical errors are pointed at. Roughly speaking, two thirds of the book are devoted to the detailed rational construction of the solutions. (shrink)

While it is legitimate to study ideas and concepts related to information in their broadest sense, that formal approaches properly belong in specific contexts is a fact that is too often ignored. That their use outside these contexts amounts to misuse or imprecise use cannot and should not be overlooked. This paper presents a framework based on algorithmic information theory for discussing concepts of relevance to information in philosophical contexts. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of syntactic and (...) semantic variants and connections. (shrink)

In computer science, an algorithm is an unambiguous specification of how to solve a class of problems. Algorithms can perform calculation, data processing and automated reasoning tasks. As an effective method, an algorithm can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time and in a well-defined formal language for calculating a function. Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty), the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite number of well-defined (...) successive states, eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input. This book introduces a set of concepts in solving problems computationally such as Growth of Functions; Backtracking; Divide and Conquer; Greedy Algorithms; Dynamic Programming; Elementary Graph Algorithms; Minimal Spanning Tree; Single-Source Shortest Paths; All Pairs Shortest Paths; Flow Networks; Polynomial Multiplication, to ways of solving NP-Complete Problems, supported with comprehensive, and detailed problems and solutions, making it an ideal resource to those studying computer science, computer engineering and information technology. (shrink)

This article addresses a dilemma about autonomous vehicles: how to respond to trade-off scenarios in which all possible responses involve the loss of life but there is a choice about whose life or lives are lost. I consider four options: kill fewer people, protect passengers, equal concern for survival, and recognize everyone’s interests. I solve this dilemma via what I call the new trolley problem, which seeks a rationale for the intuition that it is unethical to kill a smaller number (...) of people to avoid killing a greater number of people based on numbers alone. I argue that killing a smaller number of people to avoid killing a greater number of people based on numbers alone is unethical because it disrespects the humanity of the individuals in the smaller-numbered group. I defend the recognize-everyone’s-interests algorithm, which will probably kill fewer people but will not do so based on numbers alone. (shrink)

Algorithmic vision, the computational process of making meaning from digital images or visual information, has changed the relationship between the image and the human subject. In this paper, I explicate on the role of algorithmic vision as a technique of algorithmic governance, the organization of a population by algorithmic means. With its roots in the United States post-war cybernetic sciences, the ontological status of the computational image undergoes a shift, giving way to the hegemonic use of automated facial recognition technologies (...) towards predatory policing and profiling practices. By way of example, I argue that algorithmic vision reconfigures the philosophical links between vision, image, and truth, paradigmatically changing the way a human subject is represented through imagistic data. With algorithmic vision, the relationship between subject and representation challenges the humanistic discourse around images, calling for a critical displacement of the human subject from the center of an analysis of how computational images make meaning. I will explore the relationship between the operative image, the image that acts but is not seen by human eyes, and what Louise Amoore calls an “emergent subject,” a subject that is made visible through algorithmic techniques. Algorithmic vision reveals subjects to power in a mode that requires a new approach towards analyzing the entanglement and invisiblization of the human in automated decision-making systems. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to investigate the features of the algorithm for forming the stock portfolio of investors using the theory of fuzzy sets, taking into account a priori uncertain input information and market dynamics. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the application of a relatively new fuzzy-multiple apparatus and the theory of fuzzy sets to the formation of the stock portfolio of investors. From a practical point of view, the proposed fuzzy model makes it (...) possible to predict not only the structure and expected return of a portfolio of securities, similarly to the application of the classical portfolio theory, but also to obtain the values of the lower and upper boundaries of the return on securities, which will allow the investor to form a more complete picture of the structure of the portfolio in the future. As a result, it was found that the use of classical statistical approaches for the formation of a stock portfolio of investors will not allow obtaining a reliable and accurate result, since traditional methods do not take into account the uncertainty factors of events in the stock market. To level information asymmetry and eliminate risks of uncertainty, it is advisable to apply the theory of fuzzy logic. (shrink)

The computational approach to psychiatric disorders, including delusions, promises explanation and treatment. Here, we argue that an information processing approach might be misleading to understand psychopathology and requires further refinement. We explore the claim of computational psychiatry being a bridge between phenomenology and physiology while focussing on the ontological commitments and corresponding methodology computational psychiatry is based on. Interconnecting ontological claims and methodological practices, the paper illustrates the structure of theory-building and testing in computational psychiatry.First, we will explain the ontological (...) commitments computational psychiatry is grounded in, theBayesian Brain hypothesis(BBH) of unconscious inference, paired with normative deontic approaches applied to gauge psychopathology. We then turn to the steps taken in empirical paradigms, from definitions, which are used as starting points, to the operationalisation and isolation of cognitive processes and hypothesis testing based on algorithmic models, to consecutive interpretations regarding the aetiology of psychiatric disorders. We outline how experimental paradigms in computational psychiatry are specifically designed to confirm aberrations in assumed inferential processes, which are thought of as being the underlyingcore invariant features.We will illustrate a gap between the ontological commitments of computational psychiatry and the operationalisation and testing of the cognition assumed to be relevant for psychopathology. This conceptual gap is of utmost importance when designing computational paradigms and may impede a crisp understanding of the approach. Lastly, in evaluating the conceptual gap, it becomes apparent that the information processing formalism used in computational psychiatry is still grounded in rational cognitive psychology. (shrink)

Frequent itemset mining is the most important step of association rule mining. It plays a very important role in incremental data environments. The massive volume of data creates an imminent need to design incremental algorithms for the maximal frequent itemset mining in order to handle incremental data over time. In this study, we propose an incremental maximal frequent itemset mining algorithms that integrate subjective interestingness criterion during the process of mining. The proposed framework is designed to deal with incremental data, (...) which usually come at different times. It extends FP-Max algorithm, which is based on FP-Growth method by pushing interesting measures during maximal frequent itemset mining, and performs dynamic and early pruning to leave uninteresting frequent itemsets in order to avoid uninteresting rule generation. The framework was implemented and tested on public databases, and the results found are promising. (shrink)

This article evaluates the predictions of an algorithmic-level distributed associative memory model as it introduces, propagates, and resolves ambiguity, and compares it to the predictions of computational-level parallel parsing models in which ambiguous analyses are accounted separately in discrete distributions. By superposing activation patterns that serve as cues to other activation patterns, the model is able to maintain multiple syntactically complex analyses superposed in a finite working memory, propagate this ambiguity through multiple intervening words, then resolve this ambiguity in a (...) way that produces a measurable predictor that is proportional to the log conditional probability of the disambiguating word given its context, marginalizing over all remaining analyses. The results are indeed consistent in cases of complex structural ambiguity with computational-level parallel parsing models producing this same probability as a predictor, which have been shown reliably to predict human reading times. (shrink)

Scholars of critical algorithmic studies, including those from geography, anthropology, Science and Technology Studies and communication studies, have begun to consider how algorithmic devices and platforms facilitate democratic practices. In this article, I draw on a comparative ethnography of two alternative open-source algorithmic platforms – Decide Madrid and vTaiwan – to consider how they are dynamically constituted by differing algorithmic–human relationships. I compare how different algorithmic–human relationships empower citizens to influence political decision-making through proposing, commenting, and voting on the urban (...) issues that should receive political resources in Taipei and Madrid. I argue that algorithmic empowerment is an emerging process in which algorithmic–human relationships orient away from limitations and towards conditions of plurality, actionality, and power decentralisation. This argument frames algorithmic empowerment as bringing about empowering conditions that allow (underrepresented) individuals to shape policy-making and consider plural perspectives for political change and action, not as an outcome-driven, binary assessment (i.e. yes/no). This article contributes a novel, situated, and comparative conceptualisation of algorithmic empowerment that moves beyond technological determinism and universalism. (shrink)

As states increasingly use algorithms to improve the legibility of society, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is common for concerns about the expanding power of the algorithm or the state to be raised in a deterministic manner. However, how are the algorithms for states’ legibility projects enacted, contested, and reconfigured? Drawing on interviews and media data, this study fills this gap by examining Health Code, the Chinese contact tracing and risk assessment algorithmic system that serves as the COVID-19 (...) health passport. I first explore the intensive and invisible work and infrastructures that enact and stabilize Health Code’s sociotechnical assemblage. I then show how this assemblage is frequently challenged and destabilized by errors, breakdowns, and exclusions. Facing unintended engagements from heterogeneous social actors, local interests, and power hierarchies, Health Code reassembles into multiple and contradictory assemblages at different periods and social localities. Finally, I examine how people game and bypass the algorithm’s surveillance with their agencies. Recognizing this messiness and heterogeneity contributes to a more nuanced and realistic understanding of states’ use of algorithms, including the risks. Doing so also urges us to rethink the politics of citizenship and inequality in the digital age beyond inclusion. (shrink)

There are writers in both metaphysics and algorithmic information theory (AIT) who seem to think that the latter could provide a formal theory of the former. This paper is intended as a step in that direction. It demonstrates how AIT might be used to define basic metaphysical notions such as *object* and *property* for a simple, idealized world. The extent to which these definitions capture intuitions about the metaphysics of the simple world, times the extent to which we think the (...) simple world is analogous to our own, will determine a lower bound for basing a metaphysics for *our* world on AIT. (shrink)

This paper provides algorithmic options for belief revision of a database receiving an infinite stream of inputs. At stage , the database is ¡£¢ , receiving the input ¤ ¢ . The revision algorithms for moving to the new database ¡ ¢¦¥¨§© ¡ ¢ ¤ ¢ take into account the history of previous revisions actually executed as well as possible revision options which were discarded at the time but may now be pursued. The appropriate methodology for carrying this out is (...) Labelled Deductive Systems. (shrink)

This paper contributes to our understanding of farm data value chains with assistance from 54 semi-structured interviews and field notes from participant observations. Methodologically, it includes individuals, such as farmers, who hold well-known positionalities within digital agriculture spaces—platforms that include precision farming techniques, farm equipment built on machine learning architecture and algorithms, and robotics—while also including less visible elements and practices. The actors interviewed and materialities and performances observed thus came from spaces and places inhabited by, for example, farmers, crop (...) scientists, statisticians, programmers, and senior leadership in firms located in the U.S. and Canada. The stability of “the” artifacts followed for this project proved challenging, which led to me rethinking how to approach the subject conceptually. The paper is animated by a posthumanist commitment, drawing heavily from assemblage thinking and critical data scholarship coming out of Science and Technology Studies. The argument’s understanding of “chains” therefore lies on an alternative conceptual plane relative to most commodity chain scholarship. To speak of a data value chain is to foreground an orchestrating set of relations among humans, non-humans, products, spaces, places, and practices. The paper’s principle contribution involves interrogating lock-in tendencies at different “points” along the digital farm platform assemblage while pushing for a varied understanding of governance depending on the roles of the actors and actants involved. (shrink)

William Dembski claims to have established a decision process to determine when highly unlikely events observed in the natural world are due to Intelligent Design. This article argues that, as no implementable randomness test is superior to a universal Martin-Löf test, this test should be used to replace Dembski's decision process. Furthermore, Dembski's decision process is flawed, as natural explanations are eliminated before chance. Dembski also introduces a fourth law of thermodynamics, his “law of conservation of information,” to argue that (...) information cannot increase by natural processes. However, this article, using algorithmic information theory, shows that this law is no more than the second law of thermodynamics. The article concludes that any discussions on the possibilities of design interventions in nature should be articulated in terms of the algorithmic information theory approach to randomness and its robust decision process. (shrink)

In a recent book, Secular Translations: Nation State, Modern State and Calculative Reason, Talal Asad is concerned with how the language of calculation and abstraction, inaugurated by modernity and accelerated by our current algorithmic reality, erodes the language of cultivated embodiment typical of religious worldviews and the virtues that such embodiment seeks to develop. These languages are predicated upon and cultivate different types of selves that are fundamentally at variance with each other. It is not that that one cannot cultivate (...) the worshipful, virtuous self in our algorithmic reality, but Asad’s pessimistic conclusion is that the conditions for such cultivation are being made increasingly difficult as we seemingly hasten towards a posthuman future. Asad here echoes thinkers such as Leon Kass and Michael Sandel who have also expressed disquiet about the loss of cultivated embodiment in such a future, but in an important meta sense, he goes beyond them by interrogating the underlying language we use to frame our discussions in this area. The purpose of this article is to bring an awareness to this Asadian argument, which, I believe, should at the very least give us some pause for thought as technology plunges us into new and unknowing horizons.Contribution: Despite the many laudable accomplishments of modernity in the techno-scientific sphere, vital questions remain about its ability to bring about overall human flourishing. Among others, the thought of Talal Asad provides a way to think about why the promised potential of modernity in this regard has not been realised and, concomitantly, why traditional, embodied teachings of religion continue to be critical in thinking about the future. (shrink)

This paper deals with Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. Let \({\mathcal {S}}\) be a conceptual space consisting of 2-type fuzzy sets equipped with several kinds of metrics. Let a finite set of prototypes \(\tilde{P}_1,\ldots,\tilde{P}_n\in \mathcal {S}\) be given. Our main result is the construction of a classification algorithm. That is, given an element \({\tilde{A}}\in \mathcal {S},\) our algorithm classifies it into the conceptual field determined by one of the given prototypes \(\tilde{P}_i.\) The construction of our algorithm uses (...) some physical analogies and the Newton potential plays a significant role here. Importantly, the resulting conceptual fields are not convex in the Euclidean sense, which we believe is a reasonable departure from the assumptions of Gardenfors’ original definition of the conceptual space. A partitioning algorithm of the space \(\mathcal {S}\) is also considered in the paper. In the application section, we test our classification algorithm on real data and obtain very satisfactory results. Moreover, the example we consider is another argument against requiring convexity of conceptual fields. (shrink)

What is a financial crash, and why does it happen? The answers to these fundamental questions require an investigation of the ontological and epistemic state of the financial markets which will identify the causes of a financial crash, the entities involved, and the relations between them.To this end, I examine several theories on financial systems which have conceptualized financial crashes. I analyze how these theories: a) identify different causes of a crash; b) deal with the basic entities and units of (...) analysis; c) define what we can know about those causes and entities, and what they can reveal about an impending crash. On this basis, I outline some ontological and epistemic preconditions that are necessary for a financial crash to occur. I also examine an example of a price drop on the stock market and the role played by the epistemic and ontic states of the market in that event. (shrink)

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon, even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily goes through (...) a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus, Ricoeur’s distinction between idem- and ipse-identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

ABSTRACT To more efficiently cover a wide spectrum of conceptual modeling applications such as computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, and medical information systems, we envision multi-paradigm design environments which have reasoning capability to support analyzing specifcations for correctness. For such applications, information system designers employ conceptual models characterized by semantically-rich specification languages. The problem of providing a comprehensive formal framework for such languages has not been adequately addressed. This paper investigates a formal system for this purpose called Event-Formula Logic (EFL). The (...) analysis focuses in particular on characterizing correctness of database updates. Its applicability is demonstrated from two perspectives: deriving preconditions that guarantee a given update will not violate an integrity constraint, and determining alternative integrity maintenance rules for performing corrective actions when the application semantics requires this update interpretation. The work described in this paper represents an important step in the analysis of database update semantics through the use of algorithmic logic. As a result, it contributes towards providing a formal basis for semantically-rich information system design environments. (shrink)

The algorithm has become an increasingly important concept in understanding human behavior in recent years. In the case of sport, human bodies are seen as superficial to the driving force of the algorithm, whether it be genetic, behavioral or surveillance-technological algorithms (Harari Citation2015, 2020; Zuboff Citation2019). However, the French mathematician and philosopher Michel Serres (1930–2019) structurally relate algorithms to sports and bodily experience at multiple places in his oeuvre. According to Serres, sport actually enables us to reprogram and (...) rewrite our behavior, moods and thoughts, and therefore modifies our algorithmic status (Serres Citation1999, Citation2019). Against deterministic conceptions of the body, Serres argues that human bodies possess a ‘metamorphic’ nature that is similar to the procedural character of computer programs. This paper investigates the relationship between the algorithm and bodily existence through a reading of both Harari and Serres on sport. It will be argued that, against deterministic conceptions of the algorithm, the algorithm can actually broaden an understanding of the role of sports and physical activity. (shrink)

Floods are one of the most common natural disasters in the world that affect all aspects of life, including human beings, agriculture, industry, and education. Research for developing models of flood predictions has been ongoing for the past few years. These models are proposed and built-in proportion for risk reduction, policy proposition, loss of human lives, and property damages associated with floods. However, flood status prediction is a complex process and demands extensive analyses on the factors leading to the occurrence (...) of flooding. Consequently, this research proposes an Internet of Things-based flood status prediction (IoT-FSP) model that is used to facilitate the prediction of the rivers flood situation. The IoT-FSP model applies the Internet of Things architecture to facilitate the flood data acquisition process and three machine learning (ML) algorithms, which are Decision Tree (DT), Decision Jungle, and Random Forest, for the flood prediction process. The IoT-FSP model is implemented in MATLAB and Simulink as development platforms. The results show that the IoT-FSP model successfully performs the data acquisition and prediction tasks and achieves an average accuracy of 85.72% for the three-fold cross-validation results. The research finding shows that the DT scores the highest accuracy of 93.22%, precision of 92.85, and recall of 92.81 among the three ML algorithms. The ability of the ML algorithm to handle multivariate outputs of 13 different flood textual statuses provides the means of manifesting explainable artificial intelligence and enables the IoT-FSP model to act as an early warning and flood monitoring system. (shrink)

Describing an algorithm can provide a formalization of a specific process. However, different ways of conceptualizing algorithms foreground certain issues while obscuring others. This article attempts to define an algorithm in a broad sense as a cultural activity of key importance to make sense of socio-cognitive structures. It also attempts to develop a sharper account on the interaction between humans and tools, symbols and technologies. Rather than human or machine-centered analyses, I draw upon sociological and anthropological theories that (...) underline social practices to propose expanding our understanding of an algorithm through the notion of ‘collective intentionalities’. To make this term clear, a brief historical review is presented, followed by an argumentation on how to incorporate it in an integral perspective. The article responds to recent debates in critical algorithm studies about the significance of the term. It develops a discussion along the lines of cognitive anthropology and the cognitive sciences, therefore advancing a definition that is grounded in observed practices as well as in modeled descriptions. The benefit of this approach is that it encourages scholars to explore cognitive structures via archaeologies of technological assemblages, where intentionalities play a defining role in understanding socio-structured practices and cognitive ecologies. (shrink)

We argue that some algorithms are value-laden, and that two or more persons who accept different value-judgments may have a rational reason to design such algorithms differently. We exemplify our claim by discussing a set of algorithms used in medical image analysis: In these algorithms it is often necessary to set certain thresholds for whether e.g. a cell should count as diseased or not, and the chosen threshold will partly depend on the software designer’s preference between avoiding false positives and (...) false negatives. This preference ultimately depends on a number of value-judgments. In the last section of the paper we discuss some general principles for dealing with ethical issues in algorithm-design. (shrink)

: Lately there is more attention paid to technological development in intelligent tutoring systems. This field is becoming an interesting topic to many researchers. In this paper, we are presenting an intelligent tutoring system for teaching DES Information Security Algorithm called DES-Tutor. The DES-Tutor target the students enrolled in cryptography course in the department Information Technology in Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Through DES-Tutor the student will be able to study course material and try the exercises of each lesson. An (...) evaluation of the DES-Tutor was carried out and the results were promising. (shrink)

The tendency towards an increasing integration of the informational web into our daily physical world (in particular in so-called Ambient Intelligent technologies which combine ideas derived from the field of Ubiquitous Computing, Intelligent User Interfaces and Ubiquitous Communication) is likely to make the development of successful profiling and personalization algorithms, like the ones currently used by internet companies such as Amazon , even more important than it is today. I argue that the way in which we experience ourselves necessarily goes (...) through a moment of technical mediation. Because of this algorithmic profiling that thrives on continuous reconfiguration of identification should not be understood as a supplementary process which maps a pre-established identity that exists independently from the profiling practice. In order to clarify how the experience of one’s identity can become affected by such machine-profiling a theoretical exploration of identity is made (including Agamben’s understanding of an apparatus , Ricoeur’s distinction between idem - and ipse -identity, and Stiegler’s notion of a conjunctive–disjunctive relationship towards retentional apparatuses ). Although it is clear that no specific predictions about the impact of Ambient Intelligent technologies can be made without taking more particulars into account, the theoretical concepts are used to describe three general scenarios about the way wherein the experience of identity might become affected. To conclude, I argue that the experience of one’s identity may affect whether the cases of unwarranted discrimination resulting from ubiquitous differentiations and identifications within an Ambient Intelligent environment, will become a matter of societal concern. (shrink)

Scholars have focused on algorithms used during sentencing, bail, and parole, but little work explores what we term “carceral algorithms” that are used during incarceration. This paper is focused on the Pennsylvania Additive Classification Tool used to classify prisoners’ custody levels while they are incarcerated. Algorithms that are used during incarceration warrant deeper attention by scholars because they have the power to enact the lived reality of the prisoner. The algorithm in this case determines the likelihood a person would (...) endure additional disciplinary actions, can complete required programming, and gain experiences that, among other things, are distilled into variables feeding into the parole algorithm. Given such power, examining algorithms used on people currently incarcerated offers a unique analytic view to think about the dialectic relationship between data and algorithms. Our examination of the PACT is two-fold and complementary. First, our qualitative overview of the historical context surrounding PACT reveals that it is designed to prioritize incapacitation and control over rehabilitation. While it closely informs prisoner rehabilitation plans and parole considerations, it is rooted in population management for prison securitization. Second, on analyzing data for 146,793 incarcerated people in PA, along with associated metadata related to the PACT, we find it is replete with racial bias as well as errors, omissions, and inaccuracies. Our findings to date further caution against data-driven criminal justice reforms that rely on pre-existing data infrastructures and expansive, uncritical, data-collection routines. (shrink)

The World Wide Web has been a fundamental part of our daily lives for years. Its algorithmic framework ensnares our online journeys in an “endless recurrence” of the “same” by creating multiple filter bubbles. Digital algorithms establish a precise “order of discourse,” leaving little to no room for deviation. Functioning as a colossal machinic apparatus, the web embodies the culmination of Artificial Intelligence (AI), transforming every piece of posted content into a database that profiles our online behavior and activities. This (...) article explores whether approaches that describe everyday human communication, such as the theories of relevance developed by Alfred Schutz, or by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, can be applied to the realm of digital algorithmic grammars governing the web, and to the semiospheres that animate it. The conclusions raise some doubts: a gap exists between algorithmic language and its historical counterparts, characterized by a disparity between logical-mathematical grammar and other linguistic-historical-natural ones. While these two types of languages coexist within the digital landscape, their relevance differs; what may be “relevant” in an algebraic context may not necessarily translate to our live conversational exchanges, and vice versa. Although merged in the digital sphere, these languages operate distinctly, and proficiency in one does not guarantee adeptness in interpreting the other accurately. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new classification algorithm for the partitioning of a conceptual space. All the algorithms which have been used until now have mostly been based on the theory of Voronoi diagrams. This paper proposes an approach based on potential theory, with the criteria for measuring similarities between objects in the conceptual space being based on the Newtonian potential function. The notion of a fuzzy prototype, which generalizes the previous definition of a prototype, is introduced. Furthermore, the necessary (...) conditions that a natural concept must meet are discussed. Instead of convexity, as proposed by Gärdenfors, the notion of geodesically convex sets is used. Thus, if a concept corresponds to a set which is geodesically convex, it is a natural concept. This definition applies, for example, if the conceptual space is an Euclidean space. As a by-product of the construction of the algorithm, an extension of the conceptual space to d-dimensional Riemannian manifolds is obtained. (shrink)

In light of the widespread use of algorithmic (intelligent) systems across numerous domains, there is an increasing awareness about the need to explain their underlying decision-making process and resulting outcomes. Since oftentimes these systems are being considered as black boxes, adding explanations to their outcomes may contribute to the perception of their transparency and, as a result, increase users’ trust and fairness perception towards the system, regardless of its actual fairness, which can be measured using various fairness tests and measurements. (...) Different explanation styles may have a different impact on users’ perception of fairness towards the system and on their understanding of the outcome of the system. Hence, there is a need to understand how various explanation styles may impact non-expert users’ perceptions of fairness and understanding of the system’s outcome. In this study we aimed at fulfilling this need. We performed a between-subject user study in order to examine the effect of various explanation styles on users’ fairness perception and understanding of the outcome. In the experiment we examined four known styles of textual explanations (case-based, demographic-based, input influence-based and sensitivity-based) along with a new style (certification-based) that reflect the results of an auditing process of the system. The results suggest that providing some kind of explanation contributes to users’ understanding of the outcome and that some explanation styles are more beneficial than others. Moreover, while explanations provided by the system are important and can indeed enhance users’ perception of fairness, their perception mainly depends on the outcome of the system. The results may shed light on one of the main problems in explainability of algorithmic systems, which is choosing the best explanation to promote users’ fairness perception towards a particular system, with respect to the outcome of the system. The contribution of this study is reflected in the new and realistic case study that was examined, in the creation and evaluation of a new explanation style that can be used as the link between the actual (computational) fairness of the system and users’ fairness perception and in the need of analyzing and evaluating explanations while taking into account the outcome of the system. (shrink)

Turing’s famous 1936 paper “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem” defines a computable real number and uses Cantor’s diagonal argument to exhibit an uncomputable real. Roughly speaking, a computable real is one that one can calculate digit by digit, that there is an algorithm for approximating as closely as one may wish. All the reals one normally encounters in analysis are computable, like π, √2 and e. But they are much scarcer than the uncomputable reals because, (...) as Turing points out, the computable reals are countable, whilst the uncomputable reals have the power of the continuum. Furthermore, any countable set of reals has measure zero, so the computable reals have measure zero. In other words, if one picks a real at random in the unit interval with uniform probability distribution, the probability of obtaining an uncomputable real is unity. One may obtain a computable real, but that is in- finitely improbable. But how about individual examples of uncomputable reals? We will show two: H and the halting probability Ω, both contained in the unit interval. Their construction was anticipated in.. (shrink)

Ligation is a form of chemical self-assembly that involves dynamic formation of strong covalent bonds in the presence of weak associative forces. We study an extremely simple form of ligation by means of a dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model extended to include the dynamic making and breaking of strong bonds, which we term dynamically bonding dissipative particle dynamics (DDPD). Then we use a chemical genetic algorithm (CGA) to optimize the model’s parameters to achieve a limited form of ligation of (...) trimers—a proof of principle for the evolutionary design of self-assembling chemical systems. (shrink)