Agency, similar to autonomy, can be described as taking action to produce a certain outcome. Human agency is defined as an individual’s capacity to decipher meaning from their environment through consciousness, reflection and action. The concept of agency in reference to algorithms is similar, though different in execution. Agency in algorithmic processes is a complex concept, so understanding the shared agency between humans and machines requires taking “into account the combined activities of human and nonhuman entities.” Like the example we looked at in class, when we search something online, our agency is significantly less than that of the search algorithms used to produce our search results. When typing in a word, algorithmic processes use vast amounts of data to provide the user with the most relevant information to them. Numerous details are taken into account with algorithmic processes, such as your location, recent searches, popular searches, and information that is most relevant to you based on your prior search history and various other actions on the search engine. Although we’re the ones doing the searching, determining what information comes up is basically out of our control. Search results such as the websites that pop up, the order they come up in, and the information they provide, are all individualized to the user based on their data. This knowledge provided me with a deeper understanding about the mass amount of information that’s being tracked when we use the internet, and revealed how our ‘human agency’ is hardly relevant when it comes to algorithmic processes.
