“Judgements without Judges. The Algorithm’s Rule of Law”

The exceptional aggregate masses of data called ‘Big Data’, as well as the algorithms that are used to interpret and exploit them, are mostly generated and managed by private companies. Since they are becoming increasingly essential in a wide range of sectors – e.g., the administrative, political, educational ones and, more recently, health and legal environments – this is a matter of concern for the jurists, who are perceiving a transfer of regulatory powers from States and international actors to those in the private sector. In this regard, the main issue that arises, is that the ‘algorithm’s rule of law’ assumes that every problem is computable, and it can be resolved through a finite sequence of well-defined operations. However, law is about principles and values, not numbers, and the issue at stake is precisely how to reconcile the regulatory function of law with the rationale that increasingly underlies the policies based on data computing