Dan Davies Explains Why Accountability Sinks Are Everywhere Now

Does it feel to you like society has gone crazy? Well, you're not alone. There's a general view that all around the world, in the realms of politics, culture, business, and so forth, a lot of people are losing their minds. So if this is true, what's the reason for it? On this episode we speak with Dan Davies, the author of the new book The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - And How The World Lost Its Mind. Dan talks about the field of study known as cybernetics, and the inevitable outcomes of systems that grow more and more complex. This complexity -- which describes many things in the modern world, and leads to what Dan calls "accountability sinks," or entities that basically exist just to be blamed for things that have gone wrong. Dan walks us through how these emerged in the modern world, where things are headed, and how the trend could theoretically be reversed. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Key insights from the pod:
Has the world actually lost its mind? — 5:47
Examples of a lack of accountability — 7:15
Fragmentation of roles — 12:49
Boeing and a lack of accountability — 14:58
The role of leveraged buyouts — 16:46
What is cybernetics? — 19:01
What are accountability sinks? — 24:10
How do we move away from accountability sinks? — 26:48
The corporation as proto-AI — 28:50
Accountability for algorithms — 31:07
GAAP in the age of AI — 33:50
Middle managers and decisionmaking — 36:39
Stafford Beer and management cybernetics — 38:38
Debt and corporate short-termism — 40:48