Automated Gatekeepers: How Recommender Systems Shape and Constrain Autonomy
摘要
This chapter explores the impact of recommender systems on autonomy. We draw on feminist relational approaches to argue that recommender systems can threaten autonomy in four key ways. (i) Recommender systems limit people’s exposure to options, creating tunnel vision. (ii) They undermine the imaginative capacities crucial to the critical reflection required for autonomy and constrain the options people take to be feasible for them. (iii) They can generate a “lens” through which people experience the world, reinforcing oppressive stereotypes and negatively affecting self-trust or self-respect. (iv) They create echo chambers that generate an epistemological problem for autonomy by privileging false beliefs. After identifying these threats, we argue that recommender systems are not inherently autonomy-undermining and could be designed to promote autonomy. To achieve this, we propose three design goals: (i) ensuring exposure to diverse content to prevent tunnel vision; (ii) safeguarding self-respect and avoiding the exploitation of individual vulnerabilities; and (iii) generally promoting truthfulness.