[necovek]

While the article acknowledges that another way to look at computers/machines is to call them "incorruptible", it sticks to "ruthless" and "oppression" throughout.

Instead, I'd use a different, neutral term like someone used for nature here: they are indifferent to our emotions.

But that's about right: so are shovels, or meteorites, waterfalls, or a rock falling off a cliff. The main difference is that most of those inert objects act in accordance with natural forces, whereas machines have some unnatural movement (like sideways with train doors).

The other difference is that we have introduced many more of such inert objects "acting" into our environment, but we have been doing that long before we could build sophisticated machines and computers (ceilings did fall, statues and bridges collapsed, animals killed and hurt their stewards...).

As such, I would vehemently disagree: prescribing any moral direction to objects can only confuse and introduce FUD (has been done throughout history). With machines, we actually have an ability to choose the behaviour (adding sensors to train doors is pretty simple).

The fact that we don't is purely our choice, the same way we teach our kids by letting them fall, get a bad grade or experience anything negative — not because we don't love them. Do you feel like delaying a train of 1000 people because you are slightly late is ok? Would you go and thank everyone or apologize to anyone affected on the train — if you were not ruthless, you would, right?

I don't really believe the above, I am simply showing how easy it is to turn this on its head.

[harimau777]

Is a difference perhaps that computers tend to operate even when someone isn't directly using them in a way that most tools do not? Something like a shovel or even a forklift only operates while someone is there using it. Something like a sign or a barricade "operates" all of the time, but an individual can often move it if they need to (e.g. if a "road closed" barricade was poorly placed such that it blocks an unrelated road).

On the other hand, when "the algorithm" messes up there's often no one operating it to talk to and no way for the effected individual to bypass it. In that sense, perhaps computers behave like "entities" in a way that other tools do not?

[necovek]

Somewhat, but you get the same with animals we've used as "tools" for a long time (horses, donkeys and cows spring to mind).

There are plenty of things that can kill or hurt us that we've made that have no active operator either (I mentioned buildings and roads/bridges collapsing, and one could even place a shovel on a pile that slips or falls off a truck and hurts you; or using a wire gauge that's too thin for electric current it carries; or...). Lack of care (or expertise) in whatever humans construct or build can harm you without having an operator or any automation.