Algorithms, Agents, and Ontologies

This chapter details the inner workings of spam filters, algorithmic devices that separate desirable messages from undesirable messages. It argues that such filters are a particularly important kind of sieve insofar as they readily exhibit key features of sieving devices in general, and algorithmic sieving in particular. More broadly, it describes the relation between ontology (assumptions that drive interpretations) and inference (interpretations that alter assumptions) as it plays out in the classification and transformation of identities, types, or kinds. Focusing on the unstable processes whereby identifying algorithms, identified types, and evasive transformations are dynamically coupled over time, it also theorizes various kinds of ontological inertia and highlights various kinds of algorithmic ineffability. Finally, it shows how similar issues underlie a much wider range of processes, such as the Turing Test, Bayesian reasoning, and machine learning more generally.