Dread Data and Algorithms

The mystical aura surrounding algorithms we observed in the last years is currently more and more perceived as an annoyance that we must accept but not like. Nevertheless, algorithms are still praised as a panacea or are seen as the main culprit of «digital immaturity» (digitale Unmundigkeit). The current debate is less about the algorithms (as a mathematical entity) themselves than about their technical implementation in hardware and software, often used synonymously with «Artificial Intelligence». However, the enormous informational transformation potential of algorithms and data is already visible in the mathematical construct as we will see.