Eh...having an "algorithm" figure it out isn't a panacea. After all, someone writes the algorithm. All that does is shift the responsibility to a black box that only a few people know how it actually works, and give the illusion of impartiality when algorithms often operate on the biases we give them.
The problem is not the transparency, it’s about the process of choosing who write the algorithm, what factors are prioritized, and how it gets updated. Stating that it will be “open-source” does nothing to address those questions.
The current process of explicitly partisan redistributing is also 100% transparent. Every Congressional hearing is public. Anyone can get the transcripts, staff notes, and review every version of a bill as it goes from introduction to floor vote. All the litigation around maps is similarly public record. But just because you know who, what, when, where, and why a problem exists does not mean you can fix it.
It does though because you can have experts brought in by both parties as well as independent experts brought in to validate the algorithm does what it does.
The current process is transparent but at the end of the day it's five or six people with different biases for each state. An algorithm implements uniformity across the entire country. You can have a non-partisan committee set the initial inputs and revamp them every X number of years.
This is a zero sum problem. All the possible inputs are a known state so you can mathematically create an optimal distribution.
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u/I_am_the_Jukebox May 27 '23
Eh...having an "algorithm" figure it out isn't a panacea. After all, someone writes the algorithm. All that does is shift the responsibility to a black box that only a few people know how it actually works, and give the illusion of impartiality when algorithms often operate on the biases we give them.