Bureaucracy as a Lens for Analyzing and Designing Algorithmic Systems

Scholarship on algorithms has drawn on the analogy between algorithmic systems and bureaucracies to diagnose shortcom ings in algorithmic decision-making. We extend the analogy further by drawing on Michel Crozier's theory of bureaucratic organizations to analyze the relationship between algorithmic and human decision-making power. We present algorithms as analogous to impartial bureaucratic rules for controlling action, and argue that discretionary decision-making power in algorithmic systems accumulates at locations where un certainty about the operation of algorithms persists. This key point of our essay connects with Alkhatib and Bernstein's the ory of 'street-level algorithms', and highlights that the role of human discretion in algorithmic systems is to accommodate uncertain situations which inflexible algorithms cannot han dle. We conclude by discussing how the analysis and design of algorithmic systems could seek to identify and cultivate important sources of uncertainty, to enable the human discre tionary work that enhances systemic resilience in the face of algorithmic errors.