The “Algorithmic Loop” created by giants like Google and Facebook do more than show us personalized prospective dates or movie titles or news blurbs. They actually shape our choices and behavior, davidzmorris writes for PrivacyWeek.
In fairness, there are other major factors behind these changes. Hollywood, for instance, is grappling with a secular decline in theater attendance that creates pressure to make less-challenging content because it needs butts in seats. U.S. political culture was increasingly partisan well before the algorithmic loop made sorting people into opposing, equally single-minded hives a process as unconscious as breathing.
In ye olden times, the problem went under names like tradition, hierarchy, superstition, conventional wisdom or just “the way things are.” Three decades ago, legal scholar Spiros Simitis predicted just how powerful these systems could be for molding people’s behavior into acceptable forms, much like traditional hierarchies.
But Socrates also meant something much more specific: To truly examine yourself, you have to interrogate all of the social norms, unspoken assumptions and historical conditions that shaped you. Until then, you’re essentially the puppet of the people who came before you and established the norms, whether we’re talking about church doctrine or aesthetic judgment.
The algorithmic loop may not seem quite as harsh a master as the social norms of Victorian Europe – but it is often more insidious. Repressive social norms that are visibly enforced by a policeman or priest may be easier to defy than the algorithmic loop, because now we’re the ones doing the clicking, the streaming, the scrolling. It certainly feels like we’re making individual choices, affirming our uniqueness, and expressing ourselves.