The algorithm. It has become the powerful controller of the app, the system and the solution. It is the mathematical voice of logic that dictates enterprise decisionmaking without the influence of emotion or personality. The algorithm makes Google search into the powerhouse it is, it sends emails, makes apps into experiences, creates videogames, and is becoming self-learning and self-programming. Without the algorithm, so much of what we take for granted today wouldn’t exist. But these mathematical tools are not all the jovial benefactors of digital excellence; they can introduce bias against race, religion, culture and gender.

In a recent analysis on PewInternet, journalists Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson listed several disturbing occasions where the algorithm created for a good reason delivered anything but good results. The Twitter bot called Tay started out as a chat tool and ended up as a racist bigot that refused to acknowledge the existence of the Holocaust. The Facebook feature that started out as a tool to identify trending topics was lambasted by the conservatives and ended up with Facebook’s algorithms incapable of determining real news from fake.