Algorithmic Harms as Corporate Misconduct
Mihailis Diamantis · 2021
Algorithms offer many social benefits, but when they discriminate in lending, manipulate stock markets, or violate expectations of privacy, they can injure us on a massive scale. The problem is that algorithms fit poorly into existing conceptions of liability. Liability requires injurious acts, but what does it mean for an algorithm to act? This Chapter offers a solution. Corporations currently design and run the algorithms that have the most significant social impacts. Corporate law stipulates that corporations act through their employees because corporations have control over and benefit from employee conduct. This Chapter argues that the same control and benefit rationales could extend to corporate algorithms. If the law were to recognize that algorithmic conduct qua- lifies as corporate action, the existing framework of corporate liability would engage when corporate algorithms cause harm.