The Unaccountability Machine

simulo reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

Interesting, but a bit too much setup and too few payoff

3 stars

This book seems to be very popular at the moment, at least in some tech circles. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about finance driven capitalism. Academics discuss capitalism a lot, but I guess the mechanics and ideological changes since Marx remain often unexplored, unmentioned or just assumed to be known. At least, I was unfamiliar with how leveraged buyouts work and what motivates them ideologically. I would have liked to know more and thus a minor criticism of the book is that it did spend few time with such concepts (maybe the assumed audience is more familiar with leveraged buyouts and how bookkeeping works?); another flaw (at least aesthetically) is that the book covers many concepts that then do not wrap up in a satisfying way. It is a bit as if a movie would plants several arcs that then gets dissolved quickly. The author seems …

This book seems to be very popular at the moment, at least in some tech circles. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about finance driven capitalism. Academics discuss capitalism a lot, but I guess the mechanics and ideological changes since Marx remain often unexplored, unmentioned or just assumed to be known. At least, I was unfamiliar with how leveraged buyouts work and what motivates them ideologically. I would have liked to know more and thus a minor criticism of the book is that it did spend few time with such concepts (maybe the assumed audience is more familiar with leveraged buyouts and how bookkeeping works?); another flaw (at least aesthetically) is that the book covers many concepts that then do not wrap up in a satisfying way. It is a bit as if a movie would plants several arcs that then gets dissolved quickly. The author seems to be aware of it and writes something along the lines of wanting to write a thriller about the clash of cybernetic planning with neoliberal ideology but learning along the way that it needed far too much build-up to work well as such. Nevertheless, the book is enjoyable, I learned a lot of and it cites many interesting resources to learn more about what might have been covered too briefly.

ch1n3du reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

Interesting but vague

3 stars

The writing is mostly good, aside from some really really bad analogies. However throughout the book Cybernetics is sold as great tool for managing the complex problems society faces but it's never explained exactly how. Near the end of the book there's the author tries showing the potential of LLMs to improve bureaucracies but it just feels like a worse version of Henry Farrell's article on it: www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-management-singularity.

I left the book feeling very suspicious of cybernetics as a whole, I hope to try picking up a more technical book on Cybernetics to help get a better understanding of how/if it's a useful tool.

Cian reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

Interesting but slightly disappointing take on cybernetics.

4 stars

I expected to enjoy this more than I did, being familiar with Cybernetics from previous books and sharing many of Dan's views on management and economics.

Parts of the book are very good, particularly the way he outlines why neoliberalism/neoclassical economics fail to manage effectively, and the flaws with accounting. Other parts feel strangely unfinished, as if he had an idea and wasn't quite sure how to complete it. It's never entirely clear how he thinks cybernetics ideas can be incorporated into management, or how measurement can in practice be improved. And I found his belief in AI and aspects of management strangely naive, as was his belief that increased complexity is inevitable and we must deal with it (that maybe we need to simplify instead never really occurs to him).

Anton Wretman - Bookwyrm reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

A rather welcome starting point into Accountabillity Sinks and...

4 stars

There's something human about wanting specifically someone be held accountable when disaster strikes. Yet, people with power to control said situation always seems to wander scot-free.

Introducing the concept of Accountability Sinks, when they are useful and how they're needed to make systems of the world able to work.

It also gives a brief overview of Cybernetics. Something I've not come across so far. As this is my first time even hearing about it, I couldn't understand the differences between systems 1 to 5, yet given enough examples I got a little closer.

Great read!

matthewmincher reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

Large Systems as AI

4 stars

This turned out way more academic than I expected from the cover and blurb, but it was still interesting.

I enjoyed the comparison of any large complex system to an AI, and how it explains that in concert lots of small decisions taken by individuals can lead to an unintended major decision by the system.

The idea of accountability sinks, and how we actually need them in order to operate was interesting. The book also touches on short term and long term pressures and how they contribute to how healthy a system is.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this unless you're interested in human systems or management science.

Rob Ricci reviewed The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies

Nicely encapsulates my way of thinking about human systems!

5 stars

This book starts with the idea of accountability sinks: parts of a system that no one is responsible for, so there is no accountability for their actions. These are processes, algorithms, etc. that by design are not the responsibility of any one person, and which cannot be overridden so that no one can be held accountable for the outcomes that they produce. Davies makes the case that to some degree these are necessary in large systems, because we cannot really cope with systems in which there is personal responsibility for every decision. However, large systems can build so many accountability sinks that eventually no one is accountable for anything, and the system constantly produces outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want, and eventually break down.

From there, he goes into cybernetics, and the ways in which cybernetic theory describes the functioning and non-functioning of systems. One of the ways …

This book starts with the idea of accountability sinks: parts of a system that no one is responsible for, so there is no accountability for their actions. These are processes, algorithms, etc. that by design are not the responsibility of any one person, and which cannot be overridden so that no one can be held accountable for the outcomes that they produce. Davies makes the case that to some degree these are necessary in large systems, because we cannot really cope with systems in which there is personal responsibility for every decision. However, large systems can build so many accountability sinks that eventually no one is accountable for anything, and the system constantly produces outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want, and eventually break down.

From there, he goes into cybernetics, and the ways in which cybernetic theory describes the functioning and non-functioning of systems. One of the ways that accountability sinks make systems dysfunctional and unstable is that they break the flow of information: when you're unhappy with an outcome, there is, by design, no one you can express that unhappiness to that can do anything about it. At a small scale, this is tolerable and maybe even helpful to the health of the system. But when the accountability sinks are too numerous or in the wrong spots, the system becomes incapable of absorbing new information, eventually ceasing to respond to changing conditions, new needs, signs that it is failing, or growing dissatisfaction.

Eventually, all that is left is for those who are dissatisfied with the system's functioning is to pull the fire alarm (emergency brakes in Davies' examples). Davies' core thesis is that one of the problems with our modern large systems is that they are too full of accountability sinks, there are no nuanced ways of communicating what's going wrong, how it could be done better, what we actually want, etc. All we are left with is these single-bit messages where people signal 'something is going wrong' using the emergency stop mechanisms because that's all they can do.

And yes, this connects to AI, and so much more that's going wrong, but at this point you should probably just stop reading my review and read the book!