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Beyond Accountability? Culture, Information and Structure

by Daniel Davies

Former Bank of England economist and investment bank analyst

Jun 23, 2025

Compendium

“A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE … THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION”.

This slogan, hard to definitively track down but widely attributed to an IBM training manual from the late 1970s, seems to effectively summarise a lot of people’s anxieties about artificial intelligence in general management. But is it really true?

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Beyond Accountability? Culture, Information and Structure

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