Philosophy · AI · Decentralisation
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The Myth of the Neutral Algorithm
April 2026
We are told, again and again, that algorithms are neutral. That they simply reflect reality back at us — a mirror, not a hand. But a mirror can be angled. And whoever holds the angle holds the power.
The decisions baked into any algorithm — what to surface, what to suppress, what to reward, what to punish — are human decisions. They carry the assumptions, the blind spots, and in many cases the deliberate intentions of the people who built them. Neutrality is not a feature. It is a story we are told to stop us from asking who benefits.
This matters enormously right now, because we are handing more and more of our shared world over to these systems. Hiring decisions. Loan applications. What news reaches you in the morning. What voices get amplified and which ones quietly disappear.