{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,19]],"date-time":"2026-08-19T18:02:18Z","timestamp":1787162538385,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":87,"publisher":"MIT Press","issue":"1","content-domain":{"domain":["direct.mit.edu"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,11]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>On the one hand, complexity science and enactive and embodied cognitive science approaches emphasize that people, as complex adaptive systems, are ambiguous, indeterminable, and inherently unpredictable. On the other, Machine Learning (ML) systems that claim to predict human behaviour are becoming ubiquitous in all spheres of social life. I contend that ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ML systems are close descendants of the Cartesian and Newtonian worldview in so far as they are tools that fundamentally sort, categorize, and classify the world, and forecast the future. Through the practice of clustering, sorting, and predicting human behaviour and action, these systems impose order, equilibrium, and stability to the active, fluid, messy, and unpredictable nature of human behaviour and the social world at large. Grounded in complexity science and enactive and embodied cognitive science approaches, this article emphasizes why people, embedded in social systems, are indeterminable and unpredictable. When ML systems \u201cpick up\u201d patterns and clusters, this often amounts to identifying historically and socially held norms, conventions, and stereotypes. Machine prediction of social behaviour, I argue, is not only erroneous but also presents real harm to those at the margins of society.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/artl_a_00336","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,27]],"date-time":"2021-05-27T22:23:25Z","timestamp":1622154205000},"page":"44-61","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":96,"title":["The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Abeba","family":"Birhane","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University College Dublin, School of Computer Science."},{"name":"Lero \u2013 The Irish Software Research Centre. abeba.birhane@ucdconnect.ie"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,11]]},"reference":[{"issue":"8","key":"2021060919285633300_bib2","article-title":"The past, present, and future of artificial life","volume":"1","author":"Aguilar","year":"2014","journal-title":"Frontiers in Robotics and AI"},{"issue":"2","key":"2021060919285633300_bib3","first-page":"149","article-title":"A phenomenology of whiteness","volume":"8","author":"Ahmed","year":"2007","journal-title":"Feminist Theory"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.2746078","volume-title":"Hiring by algorithm: Predicting and preventing disparate impact","author":"Ajunwa","year":"2016"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib5","first-page":"i","article-title":"Platforms at work: Automated hiring platforms and other new intermediaries in the organization of work","volume-title":"Work and labor in the digital age","author":"Ajunwa","year":"2019"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib6","volume-title":"Machine bias","author":"Angwin","year":"2016, 23"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib7","volume-title":"Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics","author":"Bakhtin","year":"1984"},{"issue":"2","key":"2021060919285633300_bib8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"87","DOI":"10.1215\/10407391-10-2-87","article-title":"Getting real: Technoscientific practices and the materialization of reality","volume":"10","author":"Barad","year":"1998","journal-title":"Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib9","volume-title":"Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning","author":"Barad","year":"2007"},{"issue":"CSCW3","key":"2021060919285633300_bib10","first-page":"1","article-title":"To \u201csee\u201d is to stereotype: Image tagging algorithms, gender recognition, and the accuracy-fairness trade-off","volume":"4","author":"Barlas","year":"2021","journal-title":"Proceedings of the ACM on Human\u2013Computer Interaction"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib11","first-page":"1","article-title":"Deriving categories to achieve goals","volume":"27","author":"Barsalou","year":"1991","journal-title":"Psychology of Learning and Motivation"},{"issue":"1521","key":"2021060919285633300_bib12","first-page":"1281","article-title":"Simulation, situated conceptualization, and prediction","volume":"364","author":"Barsalou","year":"2009","journal-title":"Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences"},{"key":"2021060919285633300_bib13","first-page":"370","article-title":"LII. 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