INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Adriana Stan
Contributor
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Adriana Stan is the public relations director of
W magazine and a writer on media, culture and technology
She is also the co-founder of the Interesting People in Interesting Times event series and podcast
More posts by this contributor
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of Donald Trump
Mihai Botarel
Contributor
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Mihai Botarel is the
co-founder of RXM Creative and a writer on society and technology.
As Facebook shapes our access to information, Twitter dictates
public opinion, and Tinder influences our dating decisions, the algorithms we&ve developed to help us navigate choice are now actively
driving every aspect of our lives.
But as we increasingly rely on them for everything from how we seek out news to how we relate to the
people around us, have we automated the way we behave Is human thinking beginning to mimic algorithmic processes And is the Cambridge
Analytica debacle a warning sign of what to come&and of happens when algorithms hack into our collective thoughts
It wasn&t supposed to go
Overwhelmed by choice&in products, people, and the sheer abundance of information coming at us at all times&we&ve programmed a better,
faster, easier way to navigate the world around us
Using clear parameters and a set of simple rules, algorithms help us make sense of complex issues
They&re our digital companions, solving real-world problems we encounter at every step, and optimizing the way we make decisions
What the best restaurant in my neighborhood Google knows it
How do I get to my destination Apple Maps to the rescue
What the latest Trump scandal making the headlines Facebook may or may not tell you.
Wouldn&t it be nice if code and algorithms knew us so
well — our likes, our dislikes, our preferences — that they could anticipate our every need and desire That way, we wouldn&t have to
waste any time thinking about it: We could just read the one article that best suited to reinforce our opinions, date whoever meets our
personalized criteria, and revel in the thrill of familiar surprise
Imagine all the time we&d free up, so we could focus on what truly matters: carefully curating our digital personas and projecting our
identities on Instagram.
It was Karl Marx who first said our thoughts are determined by our machinery, an idea that Ellen Ullman references
in her 1997 book, Close to the Machine, which predicts many of the challenges we&re grappling with today
Beginning with the invention of the Internet, the algorithms we&ve built to make our lives easier have ended up programming the way we
behave.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock/Lightspring
Here are three algorithmic processes and the ways in which they&ve hacked their way into
human thinking, hijacking our behavior.
1
Product Comparison: From Online Shopping to Dating
Amazon algorithm allows us to browse and compare products, save them for later, and
eventually make our purchase
But what started as a tool designed to improve our e-commerce experience now extends much beyond that
We&ve internalized this algorithm and are applying it to other areas of our lives&like relationships.
Dating today is much like online
Enabled by social platforms and apps, we browse endless options, compare their features, and select the one that taps into our desires and
perfectly fits our exact personal preferences
Or just endlessly save it for later, as we navigate the illusion of choice that permeates both the world of e-commerce and the digital
dating universe.
Online, the world becomes an infinite supply of products, and now, people
&The web opens access to an unprecedented range of goods and services from which you can select the one thing that will please you the
most,& Ullman explains in Life in Code
&[There is the idea] that from that choice comes happiness
A sea of empty, illusory, misery-inducing choice.&
We all like to think that our needs are completely unique&and there a certain sense of
seduction and pleasure that we derive from the promise of finding the one thing that will perfectly match our desires.
Whether it shopping
or dating, we&ve been programmed to constantly search, evaluate and compare
Driven by algorithms, and in a larger sense, by web design and code, we&re always browsing for more options
In Ullman words, the web reinforces the idea that &you are special, your needs are unique, and [the algorithm] will help you find the one
thing that perfectly meets your unique need and desire.&
In short, the way we go about our lives mimics the way we engage with the Internet
Algorithms are an easy way out, because they allow us to take the messiness of human life, the tangled web of relationships and potential
matches, and do one of two things: Apply a clear, algorithmic framework to deal with it, or just let the actual algorithm make the choice
We&re forced to adapt to and work around algorithms, rather than use technology on our terms.
Which leads us to another real-life phenomenon
that started with a simple digital act: rating products and experiences.
2
Quantifying People: Ratings Reviews
As with all other well-meaning algorithms, this one is designed with you and only you in mind
Using your feedback, companies can better serve your needs, provide targeted recommendations just for you, and serve you more of what you&ve
historically shown to like, so you can carry on mindlessly consuming it.
From your Uber ride to your Postmate delivery to your Handy
cleaning appointment, nearly every real-life interaction is rated on a scale of 1-5 and reduced to a digital score.
As a society we&ve never
been more concerned with how we&re perceived, how we perform, and how we compare to others& expectations
We&re suddenly able to quantify something as subjective as our Airbnb host design taste or cleanliness
And the sense of urgency with which we do it is incredible — you&re barely out of your Uber car when you neurotically tap all five stars,
tipping with wild abandon in a quest to improve your passenger rating
And the rush of being reviewed in return! It just fills you with utmost joy.
Yes, you might be thinking of that dystopian Black Mirror
scenario, or that oddly relatable Portlandia sketch, but we&re not too far off from a world where our digital score simultaneously replaces
and drives all meaning in our lives.
We&ve automated the way we interact with people, where we&re constantly measuring and optimizing those
interactions in an endless cycle of self-improvement
It started with an algorithm, but it now second nature.
As Jaron Lainier wrote in his introduction to Close to the Machine, &We create
programs using ideas we can feed into them, but then [as] we live through the program
.we accept the ideas embedded in it as facts of nature.&
That because technology makes abstract and often elusive, desirable qualities
Through algorithms, trust translates into ratings and reviews, popularity equals likes, and social status means followers
Algorithms create a sort of Baudrillardian simulation, where each rating has completely replaced the reality it refers to, and where the
digital review feels more real, and certainly more meaningful, than the actual, real-life experience.
In facing the complexity and chaos of
real life, algorithms help us find ways to simplify it; to take the awkwardness out of social interaction and the insecurity that comes with
opinions and real-life feedback, and make it all fit neatly into a ratings box.
But as we adopt programming language, code, and algorithms
as part of our own thinking, are human nature and artificial intelligence merging into one We&re used to think of AI as an external force,
something we have little control over
What if the most immediate threat of AI is less about robots taking over the world, and more about technology becoming more embedded into
our consciousness and subjectivity
In the same way that smartphones became extensions of our senses and our bodies, as Marshall McLuhan
might say, algorithms are essentially becoming extensions of our thoughts
But what do we do when when they replace the very qualities that make us human
And, as Lainier asks, &As computers mediate human language
more and more over time, will language itself start to change&
Image: antoniokhr/iStock
3
Automating Language: Keywords and Buzzwords
Google indexes search results based on keywords
SEO makes websites rise to the top of search results, based on specific tactics
To achieve this, we work around the algorithm, figure out what makes it tick, and sprinkle websites with keywords that make it more likely
to stand out in Google eyes.
But much like Google algorithm, our mind prioritizes information based on keywords, repetition, and quick
cues.
It started as a strategy we built around technology, but it now seeps into everything we do&from the the way we write headlines to how
we generate &engagement& with our tweets to how we express ourselves in business and everyday life.
Take the buzzword mania that dominates
both the media landscape and the startup scene
A quick look at some of the top startups out there will show that the best way to capture people attention&and investors& money&is to add
&AI,& &crypto& or &blockchain& into your company manifesto.
Companies are being valuated based on what they&re signifying to the world
The buzzier the keywords in the pitch deck, the higher the chances a distracted investor will throw some money at it
Similarly, a headline that contains buzzwords is far more likely to be clicked on, so the buzzwords start outweighing the actual content
Clickbait being one symptom of that.
Where do we go from here
Technology gives us clear patterns; online shopping offers simple ways to
navigate an abundance of choice
Therefore there no need to think — we just operate under the assumption that algorithms know best
We don&t exactly understand how they work, and that because code is hidden: we can&t see it, the algorithm just magically presents results
As Ullman warns in Life in Code, &When we allow complexity to be hidden and handled for us, we should at least notice what we are giving up
We risk becoming users of components
.[as we] work with mechanisms that we do not understand in crucial ways
This not-knowing is fine while everything works as expected
But when something breaks or goes wrong or needs fundamental change, what will we do except stand helpless in the face of our own
creations&
Cue fake news, misinformation, and social media targeting in the age of Trump.
Image courtesy of Intellectual Take Out.
So how
do we encourage critical thinking, how do we spark more interest in programming, how do we bring back good old-fashioned debate and
disagreement What can we do to foster difference of opinion, let it thrive, and allow it to challenge our views
When we operate within the
bubble of distraction that technology creates around us, and when our social media feeds consist of people who think just like us, how can
we expect social change What ends up happening is we operate exactly as the algorithm intended us to
The alternative is questioning the status quo, analyzing the facts and arriving at our own conclusions
But no one has time for that
So we become cogs in the Facebook machine, more susceptible to propaganda, blissfully unaware of the algorithm at work&and of all the ways
in which it has inserted itself into our thought processes.
As users of algorithms rather than programmers or architects of our own
decisions, our own intelligence become artificial
It &program or be programmed& as Douglas Rushkoff would say
If we&ve learned anything from Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 U.S
elections, it that it is surprisingly easy to reverse-engineer public opinion, to influence outcomes, and to create a world where data,
targeting, and bots lead to a false sense of consensus.
What even more disturbing is that the algorithms we trust so much&the ones that are
deeply embedded in the fabric of our lives, driving our most personal choices&continue to hack into our thought processes, in increasingly
bigger and more significant ways
