The Multiplicity of Algorithms

Algorithms exist and operate on multiple levels. They are technical as much as they are social, cultural as much as they are functional. The chapter examines the multiplicity of algorithms, arguing for an expanded view on algorithms that takes it variable ontology into account. Providing the conceptual groundwork by merging perspectives from computer science, social sciences, and the humanities, the chapter explains the different meanings of algorithms as technical entities, and phenomena of social concern, respectively. Algorithms do not merely have power and politics; they are fundamentally productive of new ways of ordering the world as part of a much wider network of relations and practices. Offering a rich overview of critical algorithms studies, the author suggests that the multiplicity of algorithms is not about providing different perspectives on one static object called an algorithm but about realizing how the algorithm is already many things at once.