The Tyranny of Algorithms

The world seems to have been taken over by the algorithm, which dictates who becomes a winner or loser in life, not based on merit, but on predecided criteria created merely to enrich the businesses that offer the platforms for people to carry out transactions in their day-to-day lives. As technology permeates everything we do in the present times, ranging from work and recreation to banking, healthcare, and communication, the stranglehold of the algorithm is no different than the pernicious hold of the subject nation’s economy by an erstwhile colonial power.

The powers that be who control the algorithm are driven by profit and will devise any mechanism to achieve that, even if that means fanning fluff and hype with the intent of monetising it to the utmost. By offering efficiency, they seek to wrest total control of people’s faculties, taking away from them the ability to be objective and capable of independent decision-making.

When your choices with regard to where you eat or travel to, what clothes you wear, and even whom you befriend are dictated to by an algorithm primed to enhance engagement or some online platform, you lose out on free will. Remember the Matrix movies? Those scenarios are playing out pretty much all around us all the time. People are known to drive off cliffs and bridges and die following GPS instructions rather than use their common sense and ask someone for directions.

The classical battle between free-wheeling capitalism and stifling communism has no meaning in an algorithm-driven society that thrives for homogeneity. Ironically, this is the result of the former rather than the latter. The digitisation of the world, for all its ability to connect countries across the world like never before, has at the same time become the personal fiefdom of a few monopolies that reap the major share of the profits it generates.

If you were to drive along a major highway in most countries of the world, the sameness of the facilities available in terms of motels and major international fast food chains and restaurants is remarkable. People find comfort in the familiar and the role that algorithms play in conditioning them to think that way is something that is or should be a cause for immense worry. They have become quite passive in their approach to most activities in life. This loss of the individual self in favour of comfort and ease of existence is a tragic fall from grace for humanity, but who seems to care?

There are algorithm-induced personal recommendations catering to every need and fancy, making people slaves of instant gratification and unable to appreciate the immense benefits of delayed satisfaction of wants and desires. This leads to them living life like a candle burning at both ends--flicking their way to nothingness, in terms of how they evolve as individuals. Shortened attention spans mean that people chase viral or trending news, losing their ability to discern fact from fiction and knowledge from plain rumors and conspiracy theories. The absence of any kind of quality curation, thanks to the rapacious and greed-driven nature of most algorithmic settings, is wreaking havoc with the collective psyche of the world, leading people to a scary abyss of ignorance, apathy, and dysfunction.

As with any other tyranny, the tyranny of the algorithm needs to be overthrown. Allowing a generation of Attention Deficit Disorder-afflicted youngsters to normalise algorithm-directed behaviour is akin to turning them into sheep, herded into restricted pens by a malevolent shepherd bent upon controlling them for the rest of their lives for personal profit. The exponential growth of AI has added a new urgency about how to give people back the control of their lives in terms of every aspect of how they live it.

Youngsters need to be taught to think beyond what is recommended to them and learn to think for themselves rather than try endlessly to conform to whatever the online world throws at them. Being in control of one’s online activities in terms of how much of your own life you put out there, and learning to recognise and connect with authentic sources, is an important first step. Choosing to experience more and more of your life in the real world rather than synthetic algorithmic bubbles will help you hone your critical thinking skills in a manner that you are no longera slave to anyone else’s ideology. Choose the path of freedom.

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:::info Feature Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-matrix-background-1089438/

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