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Title: Part 2: autonomous software and software autonomy
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Category: Blog
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Date: 2021-08-01
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Tags: culture, politics
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In my [first essay](part-1-against-primitivism/) in this series I
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tried to convey, that any revolution needs to include technological
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liberation. In the meantime I had plotted this article, forgotten it,
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re-plotted it partially, forgotten about it again, and finally ignored
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for the last year.
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Only recently was I reminded of this dangling article pointer by a
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reader sending me an e-mail (hello! :)). At the same time I had been
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working on a very similar set of essays with some other people (which
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I will publish "soon") and so, I also started thinking about the
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matter at hand.
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> [...] autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced
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> decision.
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>
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> — <small><cite>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy</cite></small>
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This essay has three parts.
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## Atonomous software
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A lot of modern technology is pitched as "smart", based on its ability
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to re-incorporate user feedback into it.
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This ranges from music recommendation algorithms to self driving cars.
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In some cases these technologies are being called "autonomous", for
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example in the case of cars.
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But this is a mischaracterisation. These technologies are not
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actually autonomous. Decisions are not made by an "AI", they are made
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by developers of the training set and mathematical model the "AI" is
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built on. Decisions are then rewound and played back _by_ the "AI".
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Responsibility for the outcomes lie with the developers of the
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software, not the software itself.
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Terms such as "autonomous systems" are thrown around to describe these
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technologies, muddying the waters of responsibility.
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## Software autonomy
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The idea of "software autonomy" is the inverse to the one we just
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outlined. The focus is on the individual, and user of the software.
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Software isn't just another invention, such as toasters or automated
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potato peelers. Software is a meta-cluster invention, which has
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impacted every single industry
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## To you, who write _software_
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Approach your work through this lense. Find the politics of what
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you're doing, and revolutionise them.
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