Cai Cuihong,Guan Hang:“On the Impact of Algorithmic Power on Human Security”，World Economics and Politics，No.8，2025，pp.38-68.

【Abstract】Algorithmic power has become a pivotal force in restructuring social relations and reconfiguring the parameters of individual security. Firms deploy algorithms to harvest, appropriate, and commodify personal data, converting these assets into profit while augmenting algorithmic agency. In the digital era, human security can be conceptualized as free-dom from the fear of involuntary self-exposure, the fear of self-erosion, the scarcity of choice, and the scarcity of material resources. Algorithmic governance undermines these four dimensions of human security through two intertwined pathways: conduct-shaping and context-shaping. Behavioral monitoring and information filtering directly heighten concern over privacy breaches and restricted choice, while discursive substitution and economic embedding indirectly precipitate crises of subjectivity and unequal access to resources. By analyzing representative cases across four algorithmic modalities of data collection, presentation, generation, and evaluation, this article elucidates the causal mechanisms through which algorithmic power erodes human security. To curb the impact of algorithmic power on human security, this article advances four context-sensitive governance strategies: prioritizing human security, fostering technological innovation, instituting risk-buffering mechanisms, and leveraging market-based solutions. In the short term, these strategies help to strike a balance in the trilemma of algorithmic governance, while in the long run, solid algorithmic governance would contribute to positioning human security as a central concern in technological development and social progress.

【Keywords】algorithmic power, human security, algorithmic governance, artificial intelligence,power mechanism

【Authors】CAI Cuihong, Professor at the Center for American Studies, Fudan University;

                   GUAN Hang, Master's Student at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University.