ALGORITHMIFICATION
- Mikael Svanstrom
- Mar 17
- 2 min read
I like words.
In my youth I thought a language was a pretty static thing and that new words were brought into the language through some formal process and then validated by inclusion in dictionaries. This is as far away from reality you can get. It is a popularity contest plain and simple.
The Oxford dictionary even runs a word of the year contest where we can vote for our favourite words; the one that encapsulates that year. The word of the year in 2024 was Brain rot and that probably sums the year up quite well.
Another word I quite like is Algorithmification. Apart from being impossible to pronounce, it means the integration of algorithms into various aspects of society and decision-making processes. This is nothing new. We’ve been affected by algorithms since we began automating decision making and that goes as far back as the 60s. But I think the next step of algorithmification will make any other past stepping stone, pale in comparison.
There is quite an interesting research paper “Deconstructing the AI Myth: Fallacies and Harms of Algorithmification” that delves deep into this. That paper suggests that “…the algorithmification of society and the narratives used to make it appear inevitable serve specific interests, mostly profitable for and controlled by few actors. It is not AI in itself, but the utilitarian sophistication of optimisation mechanisms and the power structures behind them that profit from controlling all that we do, when and how we do it, our behaviours, and even ourselves.”
I can only speak for myself, but every aspect of my life is governed by algorithms:
What I watch (Streaming services),
what I read (recommendation engines),
what news I consume (apple news),
what I listen to (Spotify),
how I get from A to B (Google maps, Waze),
what I buy (search algorithms in google, amazon, other online markets),
…the list goes on.
I perceive it to be my decision, but at what point am I so manipulated by algorithms I no longer notice the difference?
And when we move towards Agents where algorithms not only recommend things, but also take actions on our behalf, where does it end?
What do you think? Do algorithms define us? Or do we still have a modicum of free will?
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