Las máquinas, las instituciones y la democracia

Abstract

The contemporary world, with its complexity and development, forces us to greater levels of trust—trust in machines, algorithms, experts, institutions, elites, intermediaries, representatives, etc. In spite of that, the confidence is often unwarranted, and it can be shattered to the extent that it triggers movement in the opposite direction. This leads to a generic wish for disintermediation: the desire to regain control, verify information for ourselves, be correctly represented, demand that there are always people involved in automatic decision-making processes, recover self-determination or manage delegation more carefully.