The Tyranny of Algorithms
How algorithms whittle away our freedom
One would think we have more freedom than ever when it comes to choosing things (should one have the financial means to do so). We can customise and ‘mod’ every single aspect of our lives by a few taps on our phone. Everything can be modified to match a mood or moment much the same as we can modify the very identity we choose to perform online (as I’ve written here).
Why is it then, that it so often feels like we’re just floating on by as life happens to us? Like we’re being swept up in a current that overwhelms and disorients us. We tell ourselves we can be masters of our own destiny with these increased freedoms, liberated by the breadth of our options. However, I will argue in this article, this freedom has only been realised as a façade. A front for a yoke much more difficult to escape, a king, much more difficult to overthrow, a system, much more difficult to subvert. Welcome to the desert of the real – welcome to the tyranny of algorithms. Let’s start by discussing how power works, and then we can explore how it’s being exerted over us.
Power, the ultimate Gemini
I first read about the three faces of power back at university and it’s something that I keep thinking about. The theoretical framework is provided by Steven Lukes, who called for recognising what he called ‘three-dimensional power’. In his articles (and the book, Power: A Radical View) he introduces us to three faces of power.
As Lukes put it, the first dimension of power has:
‘a focus on behaviour in the making of decisions on issues over which there is an observable conflict of (subjective) interests.’
That is to say it’s visible power – in terms of policy, this manifests itself in a way of what's allowed and what is shown. A getting B to do what A wants, and B otherwise wouldn’t do. This is the simplest and most obvious face of power – this is what we usually mean in common parlance when we talk about power.
The second face of power, in the words of Lukes:
‘allows for consideration of the ways in which decisions are prevented from being taken on potential issues.’
To put it simply, A gives B two options: A sets the agenda and B only has a choice between these. By setting the agenda, by deciding what is not shown, A exerts an even better control over B, providing B with an illusion of choice. This is what multinational companies do when they provide you with an option between two seemingly different models – it doesn’t really matter, your money ends up at CocaCola or PepsiCo anyways.
These two dimensions were part of the discussion before Lukes came along. He then introduced a third dimension: something what Noam Chomsky would call manufacturing consent. This is the…
‘power to secure willing consent by shaping and influencing desires and beliefs, a form of power whose operations or mechanisms are least accessible to direct observation by actors and observers.’
This is the trickiest of the three faces of power, and thus, the most powerful. In this case, A (through various measures) makes sure that B desires to be at A’s service. This turns your own psyche against yourself, shaping who you are in such a fundamental way that you don’t even think about trying to challenge the powers that be. So, we have brute force, agenda setting, and desire-manufacturing.
In a way, power is the ultimate May babe, the proverbial Gemini – it has many faces and uses whichever to have its way. It’s shape-shifting nature makes it difficult to pin down – below, I’ll attempt to shed light on a specific way, in which we encounter it daily, without being aware to its influence.
The New Soft Power: Psychopolitics and Liquid Modernity
We live in what Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish philosopher called ‘liquid modernity’ – an age, where every previous structure is ‘melted down’ and things are valued as far as they are ‘liquid’. That is, not solid and ready to be changed. This constant change is endemic to our time, there is no stability and there are endless options – like water, our lives, structures, economies, jobs take on shape after shape after shape. This constant flux offers up an endless stream of possibilities where nothing is fixed, anything can become anything else at any point. This can appear like a menu of endless options, but in fact, none of these options are truly ours and power mostly puts on its third face to make sure that it's used efficiently in this liquid world.
This is the process that Byung-Chul Han, probably my favourite contemporary philosopher, chronicles in his book, Psychopolitics. He uses Foucault’s terminology and distinction between different periods of power-use (unfortunately there is no space in this essay to go into it.) He argues that the bald-French-turtleneck-lover’s distinction should be expanded as in our era, these terms don’t suffice anymore. He contrasts it with previous times and argues that:
‘neoliberal psychopolitics seduces the soul; it preempts it in lieu of opposing it. It carefully protocols desires, needs and wishes instead of ‘depatterning’ them. By means of calculated prognoses, it anticipates actions - and acts ahead of them instead of cancelling them out. Neoliberal psychopolitics is SmartPolitics: it seeks to please and fulfil, not to repress.’
Psychopolitics is the perfect encapsulation of the third face of power. And tech platforms thrive in this liquid, frictionless world which feels like freedom. But what is so bad about this? I can do whatever I want to do and I’m actually thriving; ‘I don’t see the problem’ -you might say. That’s okay, as long as you follow me along and accept that these various faces of power exist, and that indeed, psychopolitics sounds like a possibility for an efficient use of the third face of power. In order to investigate how this endless freedom in this liquid world actually paralyses and imprisons us, instead of liberating us, let’s turn to a fascinating topic: the paradox of choice.
From Choosing to Picking: The Illusion of Agency
In 2004, Barry Schwartz published a book called The Paradox of Choice, in which he explored the apparent problem: is it possible that more freedom of choice is not actually making us happier? Even 21 years ago, he recognised this as a problem and argued that in fact, too many choices actually impede on our quality of life. He quotes a number of studies that show that and I’m simplifying here but having too many options to choose from, paradoxically, does not mean freedom.
He warns us: ‘the very wealth of options before us may turn us from choosers into pickers.’
Essentially, being a chooser means careful deliberation, keeping in mind short-medium-and long-term plans, as well as being able to say “I would prefer not to” (a Zizekism) to any available options. Contrast this with the picker:
‘With a world of choices rushing by like a music video, all a picker can do is grab this or that and hope for the best.’
This shift from actively seeking what we want to do to a more flow-like experience is visible in the way that Spotify and other platforms function. Instead of actively seeking out ‘content’ (broadly understood), we are seduced into passive scrolling, guided by vibes and not volition. Schwartz was warning against a life, where the too many choices before us paralyse us and sap the energy from us that’s needed to make the actually important choices in life. Something like that happened, although not exactly in the way that he anticipated.
It is commonplace that we live in an attention economy, where many of the world’s biggest and richest companies are vying for every single second of our conscious attention. With the amount of content being produced from the non-stop news cycle to the endless movies, series, books, not to mention the endless hole that is short-form video content – a sense of overwhelm is not imminent, it’s already here. If we were to try to make conscious and considered choices, for example, about which news source to turn to, by the time we got to the end of our assessment of the currently available medium, we’ll have to start over again because our assessment would be outdated.
In order to “ease” this burden, we have unlisted algorithms, but just like the Germanic tribes enlisted to serve as soldiers of Rome, they might just be our undoing.
Welcome to the Mood Machine
Algorithms anticipate our mood before we do, short-circuiting conscious decision-making. We have definitely ceased to be choosers in many areas of our lives. What’s worse, still, is that even the picking is done for us by algorithms.
Our digital persona is based on inputs, most of which we are completely unconscious of. If you requested your data that Spotify has – you can actually ask for it - you’d be shocked how they describe you. And this is supposedly based on your actions. The actions, however, that feed the algorithms are not necessarily ones that you’d consciously accept to be included.
These mechanical masters of our destiny often take unconscious actions – such as lingering over for one second longer or accidentally clicking on something – as something that reveals our inner core. And as their goal is to keep you on the platform longer, they feed this, they feed your unconscious, without any regard to what you’d actually choose to see.
As Liz Pelly put it in Mood Machine, a book about Spotify,
“You’re not putting any input in. You’re just being shown things. You’re giving it input based on which things you linger on longer, or what you skip. But it’s not like you’re choosing what you want.”
For me, I’m still trying to shake it out of my algorithm, that a few months ago I had an angry-shouty-hip-hop phase. Now I can’t get it out of my feed! Similarly, you click on ONE image on Instagram, and you won’t see the end of similar, or identical content. I once watched a bit of a Hugh Grant interview (where he’s describing all the things he doesn’t like, it’s actually hilarious) and now he’s every second video I’m shown. Don’t get me wrong, he’s handsome and witty as ever but this is a far cry from making an active choice. Nowadays, on the internet, we are not choosing, we are not even picking. We are being spoon-fed.
Instead of us making choices, it is our unconscious choices that make us – and we can do precious little, if we don’t like this version of ourselves.
So why is it that we have gone through this monumental shift, falling from our grace as choosers, without significant revolt or pushback? Let’s circle back to power and control for a second.
Famously, the two most important dystopias of the 20th century were Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Soon after Orwell published his work, he received a letter from his high-school French teacher: Huxley! In his letter, Huxley praised his former pupil’s work but also made sure to emphasise that his vision is more accurate:
“I believe that the world’s rulers will discover (…) that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”
Essentially, Huxley argues that the third face of power will become prevalent in the following decades, replacing the brutal power of the first, and the bureaucratic limitations of the second face.
In his assessment, he proved to be prophetic. Platforms claim to ‘serve’ us (love it when CEOs talk about how all they want is building communities), but in reality, all they serve are shareholders of the attention economy. Their goal is to keep you hooked and not to serve you better music, not to build communities, not to serve as a reposit for your memories. For this, they will enlist the nastiest and most base human emotions that they can find in their arsenal of social engineering.
Through the power and convenience of algorithms, the users are infantilised. Instead of having too many choices, now you are denied the possibility of making any hard choices. There is no friction, only flow – the flow of a casino, the flow of an opium den.
As we were drowning in choice, feeling the pressure of trying to attend to every single detail of our lives in order to maximise our choices to get the best results, online platforms threw us a rope that they promised was there to save us. But instead, it entangled us, pulling us ever deeper into the depth, where all meaningful choice becomes impossible.
Escaping the Mood Machine
This article could end on a sombre note, a Marxist version of King Theoden might say, “What can man do against such reckless profit-hunger?” As individuals, we are powerless against companies that employ some of the best educated, best paid technicians whose only job is to trap your attention. It seems even more hopeless, than David’s fight against Goliath.
But David won, it was an absolute knockout. And so can we, we can become Luddites of the mood machine – although it’s not an easy or extremely convenient process.
There are three ways I’d recommend trying if you feel like this article spoke to you and you don’t want to be hopeless when facing the Goliath of mood-manipulating, consent-manufacturing entities.
Reclaim boredom: the kind that forces your mind to wander and invent, rather than scroll.
Embrace curation: make your own playlists, seek out your own news, talk to people you trust.
And most importantly, bring back friction: choose slowness where speed is offered, presence where passivity is rewarded.
It won’t feel natural at first. The machine runs smooth because it was built to. But somewhere between the boredom, the resistance, and the silence, we might just start choosing again. Not because we were told to, but because we wanted to.
We are manipulated to consume content endlessly. And content is curated such that it is acceptable to advertisers. But, on the whole, we are being shown what we want to see. Technology is increasingly able to instantaneously give us more of what we want.
This is increasingly forcing us to face the fact that it is not forces outside of ourselves that are manipulating us in ways that make us unhappy, but our own deranged desires that make us unhappy.
Before technology granted us the ability to instantaneously gratify our desires, we could point to external conditions that prevented us from realizing what we thought would make us happy. But now we are getting what we want instantaneously.
We must first get what we want before we can realize that it didn't work. Only then can we learn to desire something else. It's a perversely good thing that social media is "causing" problems. Social media is less a cause than an effect of our own desires. Social media isn't a "bad" thing to be avoided; it's a mirror that reflects back to us what we are. It would, of course, be better to learn from joy instead of suffering, but both are effective.
Zooming out to consider the overall themes of the content suggested to us is useful. Much of what I find in my own feed are themes of war, negative judgments of various kinds, "entity X is screwing over the public," over-dramatized conflict scenes from movies, accusations of ill intent, competition, partisanship, us-versus-them, and various other nonsense. It tends to be ego-validating. Opening a private tab generally shows more edifying content, albeit lower IQ, than what I see in my feed.
I "deserve" this. It's what I wanted. How can I pretend that I don't want the effects of the causes that I have desired and chosen? Or how can I seriously claim to want effects that I don't want the causes of?
Wonderful post!