Socioplastics 11867 The Model Entered the Decision
An archive worker searches for a contested document. A machine-learning interface ranks five results and places an older description below the visible threshold. The worker decides from what appears. MachineIntercession names this precise insertion of computational mediation into a human process: the point where software changes what can be noticed, authorised or contested. Langdon Winner asks how technical systems participate in political arrangements. Andrew Feenberg describes technology as socially shaped and open to democratic intervention. Matteo Pasquinelli traces the histories of labour, classification and abstraction that inform machine intelligence. Together, their work makes a recommendation system more than a neutral tool. Its rankings depend on training data, indexing choices and definitions of relevance; its authority also depends on the workplace that adopts it. A study could follow one decision from query to outcome. Researchers would record the search terms, ranked results, interface display, omitted records, worker judgement and later review. They could compare the machine’s output with an independent archive search and interview staff about how rankings influence confidence and time. The purpose would be to locate where computational ordering changed the available evidence and how a person responded. MachineIntercession helps institutions examine the concrete effects of automated systems without treating the model as an independent actor. The relevant analysis concerns the people, datasets, interfaces and procedures joined in a decision. Documenting that chain can make errors easier to challenge and clarify where human review has practical force. The marker brings the model’s role into the record of institutional judgement.
REFERENCES
Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology. London: Routledge.
Pasquinelli, M. (2023) The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence. London: Verso.
Winner, L. (1986) The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
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