Helen Knowles @ Zabludowicz Collection

The Trial of Superdebthunterbot is a project initiated in 2015 by Helen Knowles, which explores questions of ethics and accountability in relation to the increasing and often unseen computer automation of our lives. Initiated as a performance, and subsequently developed into a video filmed in Southwark Crown Court with a mixture of legal experts, actors and volunteers, the piece imagines a speculative scenario in which a debt collecting company buys up student loans and, via an unconventional use of big data, seeks to ensure fewer defaulters by targeting individuals. A chain of events leads to deaths in medical trials. Can an algorithm be held culpable in a court of law?