Even though the new social knowledge is produced through operations that bypass human beings, it is actual human beings who are tethered to the discriminations that such knowledge generates. Based on algorithmic reasoning, it is a real person who gets sent to jail, refused health insurance, or offered a favorable price in the supermarket or an opportunity for social housing. Indeed, the gap between the uncertainty of cause and the certainty of personal impact is what makes algorithmic power so unnerving.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 408