A starting point for discussion
The idea
The author distinguishes hiddenness from opacity. Hiddenness is grounded in privacy and control over personal information. Opacity concerns whether computer systems that use rules to make decisions weaken people’s ability to take part in public decision-making.
Place in the reasoning
AI assessment · Connected to reasoning
The distinction keeps privacy-related hiddenness separate from opacity’s concern with political participation.
Clear rules do not ensure meaningful participation
Clarifies that the relevant opacity concern is participation in political procedures, not privacy; it therefore supports keeping participation analysis distinct from other concerns.
Computer systems can shape what people do without taking over
The account concerns a possible effect of algorithm-based systems on political participation, not an assertion that every system produces that effect.
What this means and why it matters
What this means
Hiddenness concerns privacy and control over personal information. Opacity concerns whether computer systems that use rules to make decisions weaken people’s ability to take part in public decision-making.
Why it matters
Treating opacity only as a privacy issue could miss whether algorithm-based systems weaken people’s participation in public decision-making.
Conditions & assumptions
Source coverage: Full readable text of the author manuscript from an accessible mirror; not the publisher typeset version. The passage connects hiddenness to privacy and control over personal information, and opacity to people’s ability to take part in political procedures and the authority of public decisions. Addresses: The different grounds for the hiddenness and opacity concerns.
Questions this connects to
AI-suggested relationships. Authors have not necessarily responded to one another.