When we think of freedom or ‘liberty’ we typically think of it in certain ways: e.g., freedom to act as we please, freedom from harm or interference, freedom of thought, or freedom to be a member of a community (Susskind, 2018: 165). Philosophers have often said that freedom insofar as it is afforded to you by others is not freedom (Dworkin, 1989: Ch 1; Pettit, 2017; Skinner, 2012). Whilst AI and big data could in several ways enhance freedom, it may also limit it.
As outlined in section 1.3 in module D: "The Value of Democracy", freedom and autonomy of citizens are an important aspect of democracy. Without the ability to make decisions and form opinions, citizens cannot participate in democratic deliberation. What is sometimes called republican freedom is the notion that freedom is being able to self-govern, and that if one's freedom is dependent on the benevolence of another, then this is not truly freedom. In this respect, since online platforms can dictate what is seen and said, we are dependent on these platforms, and the algorithms that govern them, to speak freely.
Freedom in the AI and big data age may therefore look very different to our traditional conceptions of freedom, but is it still freedom nonetheless? At the very least, it seems that the use of AI and big data in society must satisfy a ‘knowledge condition’ to provide sufficient freedom for citizens (Sloan and Warner, 2019: 4). Sloan and Warner (2019: 4) suggest that this knowledge condition must be something along the lines of: “those subject to decisions of another are able with reasonable effort to know that there is an adequate justification for the decisions”. This suggests that the previous discussions about black-box thinking, transparency, and accountability in Module D are of great importance to the way we think about freedom of speech and action in the AI and big data age. In what follows, we outline some of the ways that AI and big data, and particularly ADM, threaten the freedom of citizens.