Number 10 - The Algorithm

The "Algorithm"

Today's age is dominated by media. This has been true since the latter half of the 20th century where people really turned into the newspaper, the radio and the TV for news and entertainment. We lately added the internet with its various platforms to the mix. The real difference however is not the technology per se, but rather who determines what media we consume.

You see, in the past we relied on human experts to curate our choices. The respective "elite", comprised of renowned entertainers, journalists, editors and businessmen came together and pretty much decided what will be made public. This process determined what articles would be printed and what would make the front page, what music would be played and when, what shows would be green-lit and so on. The state acted as an arbitrator, ensuring everybody played nice (no obscenities and libel, equal representation of view points and so on).

What we do not realize is that this expert based model no longer applies. We now rely on complex, opaque, individualized algorithms (or recommendation systems) to get to know our taste and suggest content specific to our taste. This change has democratized content production: small producers face smaller barriers to entry and the consumer has significantly more freedom of expression to enjoy media tailored to him.

The negative aspects of relying too much on the algorithm however are much more insidious. To start, we lost a common frame of reference. Each of us enjoys their own sub-culture and political echo-chambers, somehow losing the sense of community. Even worse, we have given away the power to choose to a mechanism driven by profit. While expert systems were by no means perfect, the Algorithm is in essence a product of a company. It will simply promote content that brings more clicks and adds, no matter the hateful, fake or otherwise toxic effect to society.

Of course, like Pandora's box, there is no going back. The benefits of using recommendation systems are simply too big to ignore. That doesn't mean however that we should just blindly accept their weaknesses. Same as legacy media, we should let the state act as an arbitrator and a free alternative akin to public TV or radio. And while we are at it, rely on anti trust bodies to effectively control big tech so that the algorithm functions in a transparent way so that it can be put to good use for the public.

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