The Atomic Human

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Facebook's FBLearner Development

Period: 2013-2016

### Historical Context Facebook's FBLearner was developed under Joaquin Candela's leadership as a machine learning platform that could automate decision-making across Facebook's services at unprecedented scale. The system represented a fundamental shift from traditional software development to continuous deployment of machine learning models. By 2016, FBLearner was processing over a million machine learning models daily, making automated decisions that affected billions of users. ### Relationship to The Atomic Human FBLearner serves as a crucial example of modern automated decision-making systems: #### Continuous Deployment vs Central Planning As detailed in [Chapter 3](/chapters/03-intent/), FBLearner marked a shift from traditional software development to continuous model deployment. This mirrors broader themes about how automation changes organizational decision-making structures. #### Digital Oligarchy The system exemplifies the book's concept of "digital oligarchy," where automated systems make consequential decisions affecting billions with limited oversight or accountability. Its scale and impact demonstrate how machine learning enables unprecedented centralization of power. #### System Vulnerabilities The platform's exploitation by the Internet Research Agency (detailed in Chapter 3) shows how automated systems can be manipulated when they lack human context and judgment. This supports the book's warnings about delegating decisions to algorithms. #### Information Topography FBLearner's architecture reflects themes from [Chapter 2](/chapters/02-automatons/) about how information flows through organizations. Its design balanced centralized control with distributed execution, though in ways that proved vulnerable to manipulation. #### Technical Evolution The system's development parallels themes from [Chapter 5](/chapters/05-enlightenment/) about how technical capabilities reshape social structures. Like the printing press before it, FBLearner represented a fundamental shift in how information and decisions flow through society. FBLearner thus serves as a key example of both the capabilities and risks of modern automated decision-making systems, illustrating how technical advances can reshape social structures in ways that challenge human agency and accountability.