The special status of computers
Banking is probably the most regulated activity in the modern state. The U.S. Constitution contains a “commerce clause” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) giving the federal government the right to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”–arguably the closest the original U.S. Constitution comes to creating a federal agency or department. There is no official justification for the special regulatory status of banks, but the scrutiny they get can be traced to the idea that banks are the keepers of money, the facilitators of exchange, and one of the most basic intermediaries in public life overall.
Has the time come to grant computers–and the algorithms they instantiate–a similar special status? Computing is just as “everwhere” as money–arguably more ubiquitous. The substance of modern money is not gold, coin or printed bills, but entries in a computer ledger held on hard disks and electronic memory. Social media has shown us that computing is just as foundational to non-commercial activity. Like the financial system, computer logic is also incredibly obscure to outsiders without specialized knowledge and permissions. Indeed, one of the most shocking things revealed by recent technology whistleblowers is how little oversight there is over computing, and how often computers are used to achieve a goal exactly because, when you translate human action into computer action, it avoids understanding and legal scrutiny. The workings of computing power are easily as systemic (destabilizing) as money. Doesn’t it deserve a special regulatory status, too?