all algorithms are bad and computers were a mistake
i like video games and their music!
- she/her
- twitch.tv/saberamesia
trans mom, wife, composer. The now-retired speedrunner who asked the axiom verge dev "why?"
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in reply to @noracodes's post:
How do you feel about calling it The Algorithm?
I agree it's a bit silly to be harping on "no algorithms" when "sorted chronologically" is in fact an algorithm. But using it like a proper noun makes it more clear that we're treating it like something with agency.
But it doesn't have agency, does it? It's a machine for sorting things, built by humans who had agency over the way they designed it, the data it uses, and the metrics it optimizes for. The culprit for "The Algorithm" doing something bad is the company, not a machine. The machine didn't choose this because the machine doesn't choose, it just executes other people's choices.
I didn't say that it does have agency, I said that we treat it that way. It's something to launder the decisions of humans, a sleight-of-hand to avoid culpability by scapegoating an inanimate object.
My intention is that The Algorithm is an anthropomorphism of a phenomenon, like The Machine or The Wall. This is different from an algorithm, the same way it's different from a machine or from a wall.
Ah, I see what you mean. I agree, but I don't see how that's more useful, rhetorically, than the much less opaque method of naming the organization responsible: "Twitter promoted the post" vs "The Algorithm promoted the post", for instance.
in reply to @SaberaMesia's post:
if it weren't for computers and algorithms, i'd never have gotten a doctorate and I would be both happier and closer to having enough money to stop programming for a living