The Algorithms are Working Perfectly
29: Making a Choice is Still a Choice
Hello readers!
Today’s newsletter is a bit of a departure from the usual content. This piece originally ran on Medium and is what I call “soft tech”, which I wrote to be accessible for not-so-savvy folks like myself. We always bemoan the algorithms and the ways it boosts or limits content. We like Substack particularly because there isn’t a giant bot in sight. But what if they algorithm… is right?
The Algorithms are Working Perfectly
At some point, we ask how we got to the present moment. We are snapped out of its trance and become more aware.
I looked up at the clock at realized I had been watching an Australian cow veterinarian perform castrations and field necropsies for two hours when my husband and I were supposed to have been resuming Alien Versus Predator.
Anything we consume online is curated to maximize our exposure to products or services we are more likely to buy. Advertising is a powerful and effective tool. While it seems a tiny, imperceptible bell, recommendations also drive purchasing. Based on your preferences, watch history, and read articles, most sites or carriers scan their catalog trying to pinpoint your interest. They are learning about their consumer and building a profile.
Google’s ad personalization settings maps the user based on, among other pieces of information from advertisers and your account, its “estimation of interests”. Back in 2015, it got me down to age, marital status, and parity. My husband? Google thought he was a 65 year old Republican into politics and technology. At the time he was less than half that age and a social Democrat at that. What made Google come to these conclusions?
In essence, we cannot really choose to opt out.
Consider the body of your concerns: environmental, social, political, or racial. What do you wonder about and search for? What moves you? All that information is compiled and compared against others of similar persuasion. Even before Google, I told a friend about my husband’s musical tastes. He responded, “What is he, 65?”
Who we appear to be, in the digital space, is largely determined by our stated interests and the content we engage. Most 22 year olds do not have the entire The Who catalog, but if everything else is correct in a search engine’s predictive analysis, it doesn’t matter. It will keep mining for the potential interests of a user based on past selections to keep them engaged. Just as predictive texts rely on its very short memory of a few previous words, more complex machine learning takes selecting recommendations to further refine its algorithm, so more of what a user is likely to enjoy is on the front page. Your selection of those options is success for the algorithm. With an increasing level of specificity, the rabbit hole opens.
That brings me to YouTube.
My husband has a few broad interests: medicine, technology, high level math, cookery, analyses (psychological, linguistic, creative), and craftsmanship. Over the years, he had clicked and clicked recommended channels and videos, eventually following 254 accounts. That’s a lot of information. He has gone down rabbit holes, watching a faceless man make a knife out of milk, analysis of police interrogations, a happy plumber and his companion Ratty, and… cow castrations. Medicine, a bit of craftsmanship, surgical skill, an Aussie (like the plumber), with a sunny personality to boot.
The Choice to Disengage
The only way to prevent an algorithm from forming a picture is to give it no information. The algorithm gives us only what we feed it, so in essence, it’s a mirror, albeit warped. Right?
In this case, we’d be wrong.
The web knows you better than you think. Whether it’s by search history, cookies, or your IP address, your movements are tracked. There is no disengaging because making no choice (regarding recommendations) is still a choice. We’re either in or out, plugged in or drifting in a void. YouTube is owned by Google so even if you’re not logged on using any account, the trail does not end. In essence, we cannot really choose to opt out.
The Chicken and Egg
We create culture. In turn, culture shapes us as a collective and we continue shaping culture. It is a continuous feedback loop reinforcing or discouraging our choices. In this way, as humans build more algorithms, it can be an eerie feeling to imagine that the algorithm is shaping us. It is difficult to really say what comes first, since influence is already there from other sources. Even creating this article is influenced by the environment I’m already in. I’ve added something and that mark I leave perhaps shapes someone else. It’s a infinite reverberating circuit.
Back to that night on the couch, I was listening to a born American take on the vowel sounds of a native Australian. His o vowel sound was not quite there and perhaps would never be. That potential was long gone since by early childhood, we have our accents, which include those vowel sounds. I have a particular interest in linguistics and was able to catch a few interesting things.
Then there were the necropsies. I’ve done autopsies (on humans), so I was interested in how the technique differed. I was engrossed in his sequence of slices and his identification of organs. I learned about the rumen or the first chamber of the digestive system and what information he gleaned from its contents. Ruminant digestion was complex and it was only much later I read about all its convoluted pathways.
He performed without gloves to reduce the waste he produced in the field. I contrasted that to my shoe covers, bouffant cap, surgical gown, face shield, and mask before I even got to the gloves.
Here we were, both glued to a morbid yet fascinating video. From our choice of science degree years ago to the present moment, we’d unconsciously and incrementally moved gears. As humorous and strange as the moment might have been, we were watching precisely what we should have been watching. Our interests and careers had converged within this one video. The algorithms had consolidated and zeroed in, with remarkable accuracy, onto the very core of what would keep our attention on an idle Friday night.
It worked perfectly.
As a reader of The Sample, I get interesting newsletters delivered daily. I recently checked out (and subscribed to) Incidentally by Mary Kate Nyland, who writes humorous and insightful quips on life’s little moments.
Okay, let's assume that you're right, and that tech algorithms "work perfectly" and feed us what we "should" consume (quotes for precision, not for sarcasm).
What do you think are larger implications, if any? Do you think that tech's "precision" service is a good thing for you, or for us as a human collective?
If what we consume is who we are (at least to Google and the others), is there any way we can dig our way out other than try to hide our preferences from whoever is monitoring them?
They never work "perfectly" for me at any rate, at least at the beginning. I do notice that over time, things that are pushed to me have more relevance and interest.