Algorithm

From metawiki
Flowcharts are algorithms visualized

Algorithms are the instructions that determine what a computer will do. In this wiki, it can also refer to the generating equation that determines what a universe or culture will do.

"The Algorithm" also refers to the way that social media companies construct your newsfeed using AI that is incentivized for attention and therefore outrage.

Thinking algorithmically helps you break down complex processes into their individual steps and decision trees. In a computerized society increasingly controlled by algorithms, understanding how they work is pretty important to understanding how modern society works.

Algorithm Pages

Choose Your Own Algorithm

The fact that social media algorithms are designed to maximize attention and time spent on apps makes them dangerously addictive and promote outrage and polarization. Would you choose this algorithm if you had the freedom to do so? Almost certainly not.

Algorithmic transparency is needed to prevent social media from destroying society. There are a number of ways to do this. The government can mandate that the algorithms be open source, or that they be optimized to maximize education or happiness instead of time on app.

Another approach could be for platforms to allow you to choose among many different algorithms that are optimized for different goals. You pick whether you want your newsfeed to educate you, make you laugh, inform you about politics and current events, or only show you friends and family. This would be very easy for them to implement, they simply don't because there is no financial incentive. Any algorithm that optimizes for anything other than time on app will produce less short-term revenue. That is, until the users decide the platform is toxic and abandon it.

Algorithm Videos

Don't let the algorithm choose what you watch next! The more you learn about algorithms the less they can control you!

What is an algorithm?


What exactly is an algorithm?


MIT Lecture Series - Algorithmic Thinking


Algorithms are Destroying Society

Game Theory and Gamification

Game theory and gamification are important topics that deserve their own page, and someday they will get one. In the meantime, this discussion of these topics with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen will get you thinking about how games and gamification impact our sense of agency, especially on social media. His book Games: Agency as Art is an excellent deep dive into this subject. There is also an excellent discussion of moral outrage porn.

Conspirituality - Games Against Humanity with C. Thi Nguyen

Algorithmically Recommended Music

Be mindful about your Spotify algorithm and it can introduce you to a world of amazing and diverse music. Some ideas about how to do this: [1][2]

Radiohead - Paranoid Android (Full Album)