I just watched a video from Technology Connections about “algorithmic complacency”, the idea that we are so surrounded by automated, curated feeds, that it seems we are forgetting how to seek out information for ourselves, handing over the reins for our train of thought to The Algorithm. He discusses many of the possible impacts of that really well, i recommend the video. He says he may be being very “old man yells at cloud” but everything he was talking about really resonated with me, and also reminded me of a concept called “dataism” I read about in the book “Homo Deus” by Yuval Noah Harari.

Homo Deus explored the ideologies of humanity past, present and potential future. It suggested that for the past century or two we have followed “humanism”, as in, humans are the source of power, knowledge and wisdom, in contrast to a previous time where we would look to a higher power for those things.

The shift from theism to humanism reflected how we gained more power over our world. We used to live in a world where we controlled many things (namely, animals and plants) but not everything (namely, disease and weather), so our ideology said, we have dominion over plants and animals, but someone else has dominion over us and they control the weather and disease. Now we understand and to some extent control disease and weather*, our ideology says that humans hold all the power and insight over the world. With humans being the sole holders of power and insight, the answers to questions like “how should I live my life?” changed. In the past, the answer would be in the word of god, as written or preached about. Under humanism the answer is in introspection, gut feelings, and talking to people to gain their insight. Now, we are perhaps looking elsewhere again…

The book suggested we are due another shift, and projected three different ideologies we may move to, the one I found most compelling was “dataism”, because I feel like I see it everywhere. Under dataism, the centre of power, knowledge, and wisdom is in Data. Questions that were once answered by God, then Humans, are now answered by Data. What’s the healthiest lifestyle? In times past, God could tell you, more recently, Humans could figure it out for ourselves, and now fitness trackers will use algorithms to process your biometrics to give you the answer. The answer is in the Data. Where you once may have looked for new music you might like by asking your fellow humans for for recommendations, you may now take recommendations from an algorithm. This is a move towards dataism as the dominant ideology of our society. Perhaps.

Yuval didn’t say that this is definitely what we’re going to do, he put forward the prediction as a possible way we could develop, because with that in mind, we can consider whether that’s what we want to do, or whether we would rather do something else.

*Yes, we are notably failing at both of those things, what with Climate Change and COVID-19, but that’s just the thing, we are failing. When an epidemic/pandemic happens we don’t go “holy crap, why is this happening to us??” We go “holy crap, who fucked up!? This was preventable, who can we hold accountable?” we consider these things to be within our control, even if we fail to control them.