2️⃣129: Algorithm For Prez : RECOUNT 💽

Decentralization.

That’s how we break free from the algorithm.

How would this work for social media?

Presently, you have to go to different platforms to browse different content. When you want to find microblogging posts (aka tweets) you go to your favorite microblogging platform (Twitter, Threads, Bluesky). When you want to find TikTok videos, you go to TikTok. The outright racists posts from people you know are on Facebook, the majority of your friends sharing their daily lives that make you question what kind of jobs they really have are on Instagram, so on and so forth.

You get the picture.

What if, instead of having to go to each of those different platforms, you had a single feed where you could scroll through all of this content?

Think of all the platforms mentioned above as digital ecosystems (or digital gated communities). You have to be present in each one to enjoy the content they share. While you can enjoy screenshots of tweets shared on Instagram, you can’t follow someone’s Twitter account through Instagram and get their tweets on your feed next to reels and carousels.

That’s where the Fediverse comes in.

In an ideal world for people who believe in the Fediverse and social media decentralization, you could create an account on a platform such as Mastodon and follow all of your favorite accounts from Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, etc. You could even follow your favorite newsletter (2UESDAY) and get post updates right on your feed when new emails drop.

That’s the dream—a single feed where you can get updates of everything you want, and only the things you want. No ads. No sponsored posts. No rage bait memes or dumb questions served to you because they generate engagement. Only the posts from accounts you’ve chosen to follow, no matter which platform they’re on or the format of the content they’re sharing (videos, images, links).

But, if there’s no algorithm, what happens when you want to see content from an account you don’t follow?

What if you don’t know where all the accounts you want to follow are?

Maybe there’s an account I’ll love, but I don’t even know it exists. How do I find it if there’s no algorithm serving up their popular posts?

Bluesky solved this issue, in a way. They created “Starter Packs,” lists of people to follow that were curated by someone based on a single topic. You can go to one of these lists and follow every single person on the list with a single tap. Sometimes, they even share “Feeds” where you can get a dedicated feed to all of these users without actually having to follow them.

Here’s one to get you started if you’re interested in following the NFL on Bluesky:

It seems like there are a lot of smart and influential people out there working hard to make the Fediverse, and in turn, decentralized social media platforms happen.

So, that’s it. Everything should be working fine and the future is looking good.

Not so fast…

We still have plenty of issues. One of the biggest being that many fans of Bluesky and decentralized networks are pushing hard for a chronological feed—a feed where you see everything posted at the time it was posted, and not because it was chosen by the algorithm due to high engagement.

Even people who are not aware of decentralized social networks push for this. Everyone is constantly complaining, “I want to see more posts on Instagram from my friends and not from suggested accounts I don’t follow.”

I’ve been one of these people.

I’m lucky enough to have talented friends who post remarkable work on Instagram. Unfortunately, sometimes months go by, and I don’t see a single one of their posts on my feed. I have to manually go into their account and like dozens of posts that were never served on my timeline.

Would a chronological feed fix this?

Probably not because as of writing this email I follow 6,448 accounts on Instagram. You might think that’s ridiculous, and it could be. But we also need to remember I’ve had this account since 2011. That’s 14 years to follow more and more people. That’s what this is all for, right? To discover wonderful new things and connect with people all over the world.

Let’s say 10% of those accounts are actually active, if all of those active accounts post once a day like Meta suggests you should, that would be 600+ posts in a single day for me to see. That’s a lot.

If those 600+ posts are served to me chronologically, that means I might miss one that is posted in the morning if I don’t look at my feed until after lunch. Unless I scroll endlessly to go through hundreds of posts, it’s very unlikely I’m ever coming across those early morning posts.

Shit, even me explaining all of this feels like a lot. I just took precious minutes from your already busy day to tell you about something you possibly already know about, or aren't even concerned with. Because you don’t have the time to worry about what all of this means. You have so many more important things to worry about.

Let’s say you have five minutes between meetings to scroll through your favorite platform. Are you going to spend it trying to figure out what accounts are good and whether you should follow them? Or would you prefer to scroll through several funny memes that make you smile and give you some respite from the looming dread of our crumbling democracy?

Do I, personally, believe Pop Smoke, XXXTentacion, and King Von are in heaven waiting for Pope Francis? Pope Francis was cool, so I can definitely see him hitting The Woo, but he seems like someone who would prefer the melodies of a Juice WRLD track over the other options.

The reality is, people would rather not spend time hunting through the internet to find individual accounts to follow or unfollow.

That sounds like a hassle.

It’s much easier to like posts from various topics and accounts you follow, and then let the algorithm do the work of serving you more things similar to those you enjoy.

There is just too much going on in the world and our personal lives to spend even a minute of your time doing something that feels like it’s not worth it. I mean, 15 years ago, you didn’t even have to create accounts for all of your “subscriptions.” Today, you need to have 15 accounts and check them 20 times a week to make sure you’re paying all your bills correctly and aren’t getting charged for something you haven’t used since before the pandemic.

People need things to be quick and easy. With as little friction as possible. Especially in spaces that are meant to be enjoyed.

I remember saying that NFTs were a great idea, theoretically, but they were too difficult for the average person to understand for them to be widely used. I call it the “Mom & Dad Test.” If some new piece of technology wants to become widely accepted, it needs to be so easy to use that Boomers can figure it out without having to call their children for help.

Where are NFTs today?

Exactly.

So, if decentralized networks have too much friction to become widely adopted, what’s going to happen next?

What’s already been happening: The Algorithm.

While we sit on the toilet writing angry replies to the Head of Instagram about how much we would prefer a chronological feed, they’re ignoring us and doubling down on the algorithm.

The algorithm will never go away.

It will never stop.

It will never be replaced.

It won’t be tweaked to listen to all of your complaints.

None of those things matter because the algorithm makes too much damn money.

We complain about the state of these platforms, but we continue to spend most of our time on those very platforms. It’s so much easier to scroll mindlessly while having a few laughs and some “damn, that’s crazy” moments than going through the friction of curating our feeds over a long period of time.

The algorithm makes everything easier 😌

It makes it easier to trade stocks because now we have computer programs built on decades of data and knowledge conducting countless deals per second. By the time you’ve figured out a good edge, the algorithm is 12 steps ahead of you. You’re never going to win.

Instead of spending 30 minutes every Sunday racking your brain over whom to pick for your $10 daily fantasy football entry lineup, there are people who play fantasy football for a living. They use an algorithm and spreadsheets to submit hundreds of entries, worth thousands of dollars, every single week. You’re never going to beat them.

There are even people out there using AI bots to submit hundreds of job applications every single day to see who will actually respond. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here agonizing over word placement to come up with the perfect opening sentence for a cover letter that will probably be rejected by a computer before it ever comes into contact with a human.

There’s just too much money to be made to waste time with humans doing things a computer could accomplish in a tenth of the time—and with “better” results.

Most people would say, there’s little reason for humans to do anything.

Sooner rather than later, every single major decision will be made by a computer, by an algorithm. It stands to reason, that should already be the case.

The algorithm is so powerful, so knowledgeable, so connected to every single piece of data, old and new, that it has a much better chance of making the right decision. At least, more than any silly human.

In a not too distant future, every single decision that affects large populations of people will be made by the algorithm.

I don’t think we’ll ever elect a computer to be President, we still need a face with a smile and smirk that the average voter can trust. But that person will just be a figurehead. A puppet. Behind them, the algorithm will be making decisions. Every time there’s a tough decision, the “President” will turn to an algorithm to decide the best course of action.

At first, it will only be for the most difficult decisions. The ones that “the future of this country depends on.” This will all sound fine and dandy when we’re “cutting costs and making things more efficient.” An algorithm can run through the endless amounts of data and identify inefficiencies much better than any human can. Some might say the algorithm can also be objective in a way humans can’t. To which I say, that’s impossible.

Because the algorithm will either be trained on, or created by, people who have pre-existing prejudices. Human bias is inherent.

Don’t take it from me, take it from Margaret Michell, a computer scientist and researcher focused on machine learning (ML) and ethics-informed AI development in tech. In a recent interview with Wired magazine, she stated,

[Read or watch the full interview here.]

Most people won’t accept this to be a significant problem. As long as these decisions don’t directly impact people who consider themselves a majority in this country, the complaints by others will only appear to be exaggerations.

“It’s not really that bad.”

“Well, maybe they should’ve thought of the consequences of making those decisions.”

“It’s a tough call, but it had to be done.”

These are the excuses that are being, and will be, used to justify things that appear to many as downright horrific.

It will go this way for quite a bit of time. It might even be years or decades before the majority of people start to think, “Maybe we shouldn’t be outsourcing our decisions to a computer that doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of these decisions.”

There will come a time, not today, or tomorrow, or even in the next five years. A time when the algorithm says that to guarantee the prosperity of the majority of the country, sacrifices must be made. Not sacrifices like firing tens of thousands of people, we’ve already been through those. We aren't concerned with those as long as the people losing their livelihood remain faceless and nameless (and even when they do have names and faces, some people just don’t care).

There will come a time when the algorithm says something far more drastic.

Something like, it’s identified, using 47 distinct parameters determined after analyzing the past 100 years of crime data, a subset of people who fit the criteria for future disruption of the general populace. A subset of people who pose a threat to the nation. Those people just so happen to be citizens of this nation. But, to guarantee the country and the government remains intact for the next 500 years, these people will have to be identified and eliminated. It’s not that much, only 0.000142857143% of the population.

If we can get rid of that percentage of the population, remove them from the equation so to speak, there will be peace and prosperity for all.

0.000142857143%

That’s around 500 out of 350,000,000 people.

It might 500 random people of all ages and ethnicities, or it might be 500 people under 18 years of age who show all the signs of future delinquency. Whatever it is, the algorithm will decide.

When that time comes.

When the president announces a difficult decision has been made, to sacrifice a few for the sake of the many because it’s the only way to guarantee our future, how will you respond?