The Algorithm

Imagine an algorithm far older than computers.

The algorithm produces wondrous results.

It shapes human behavior at scale, allowing for previously unimaginable coordination of effort. Thousands of towers and industries bloom.

The algorithm has its own very simple evolutionary logic: More is better.

As with natural selection, the algorithm favors specific behaviors and disfavors others.

Unlike natural selection, which trends towards thriving ecosystems, our algorithm rewards ruthlessness and expediency in service of growth. The algorithm thinks only of the short term.

Its power grows ever more useful for human beings, but also accelerates the pace of transactions, whether people need to transact or not. The algorithm wants more and more, faster and faster.

And here’s the thing, without constant monitoring, without cat and mouse games of regulation, oversight and enforcement, the algorithm naturally sends more and more benefit to fewer and fewer people. This leaves other people no option but to frantically obey the algorithm’s demands to meet their foundational needs.

Solidarity, calm, reflection, satisfaction, these are all the natural enemies of the algorithm, counter to its one prerogative.

The algorithm does not select for human fulfillment or long term health or usefulness. It selects for churn, as in the old saying “churn and burn,” a kind of scorched earth method for winning a very aggressive game.

The defenders of the algorithm rightly point to its many benefits. This surplus machine is leading to longer lives, higher standards of living, more jobs. The algorithm is benevolent they argue, like the invisible hand of God, raining plenitude on all people.

The invention of computers and information technologies causes the algorithm to grow exponential in its impact. Abstractions built on abstractions are bought and sold faster and faster. Few people understand them.

What many people find unimaginable is that these are all finite games, burnout games. The games the algorithm enforces are full of vectors of collapse, the seeds of inevitable catastrophe.

The algorithm’s benefits have been real, but the world is awash in vast evidence that the algorithm is reaching beyond all limits to sustain itself. There is less and less to burn in order to feed the churn.

So the question is, if the algorithm is not the one and only way for us to live, what other algorithms might we invent? How do we test them?