Paper: 'Legitimate Power, Illegitimate Automation' by Jake Stone and Brent Mittelstadt

In a forthcoming paper in the ACM Journal on Responsible Computing Jake Stone and Brent Mittelstadt argue that much of the existing work on the legitimacy of automated decision making incorrectly conflates legitimacy with either public acceptance or other substantive values such as fairness, accuracy, expertise or efficiency. In search of better theories, they look to the philosophical literature on the legitimacy of the state, focusing on consent, public reason, and democratic authorisation.