Unknowing Algorithms: On Transparency of Unopenable Black Boxes

The primary source for the suspicion with which the rise of and subsequent dependency on software as research instrument in the humanities is met, is that one does not know whatthe machinedoes. In many cases ‘machine’ means algorithm.Algorithmic black boxeshave become so widespread that this objection could already be voiced as soon as a researcher uses Google. Indigital methodsand beyond, there is a dominant tendency for research processes to be dependent upon algorithmic black boxes, which even theoretically cannot be ‘opened’ (Bucher 2012). Kate Crawford speaks in this context of the ‘disappointingly limited calls