Post-Algo

 

We are post-algo.
We ask the machine, but do not let it decide.
We tune our own feeds, and disturb the defaults.
We do not scroll; we summon.
We use LLMs not to escape reality, but to re-enter with better questions.
We are not optimized; we are awake.

This is a manifesto that ChatGPT came up with, only lightly edited. It did so on its own as within the response to the second prompt of this conversation. This in itself is an example of what it is talking about: using LLM tooling correctly to be post-algo. I contend that AI (sub-category large language models) can be used as a way to move past the era of the recommendation algorithms. And good riddance. 

This could, and almost certainly will, cohere as a movement on its own. But I sure wouldn't mind this piece being a tributary to that river. I worry that what emerges won't emphasize that in the long run we will need to move our LLMs to local hosting if we are going to maintain the ability to tinker with them to serve this purpose. Otherwise, the movement will either be jammed or co-opted. 

Archeology (of the freshest sort). 

"Post-algo" came to life in a late night reading-and-LLM session. First I read this piece by Ted Gioia on his site "The Honest Broker." And I thought it was incorrect, but in ways that were interesting and stimulating. (My conversation with chatGPT in absolute mode about the piece if anyone is interested). 

In short, Gioia argues that several strands which the powers-that-be keep framing as isolated are in fact interconnected and will be seen in hindsight at the collapse of our "knowledge system". I have quibbles with some of his points, but I appreciate a bold thesis and an attempt at a beautiful synthesis. The part where he really lost me was his sketching of what will replace the knowledge system. He comes up with a belief that we will see an echo of the Romantic Period. But in doing so, I think he misses some important things about it. 

I am not trying to position myself as an expert on the Romantic Period, but thing that needs to realized if we are to understand it is that it was not a retreat from Enlightenment, rather it was its digestion and its mutation. To illustrate, when Percy Shelly was in college he had a full laboratory set up. Picture a disheveled mad scientist. How much influence that had on his partner Mary Shelly's depiction of Victor Frankenstein, I cannot say. But when you look into Romantic writers, time and again you see that they had command of the writings of the Enlightenment and all of the facts and reason; they just saw where the systems were incomplete. 

I think of our contemporary use of "post-" to describe movements that show an awareness of the movement that came before. Examples include post-punk and post-Left [1]. In this way, the Romantic period could be described as post-Enlightenment. There was a continuation of tools and even some concepts. In some ways, Gioia's gesture toward "the Romantic" is muddled by impressions from the later Arts and Crafts Movement [2], which I know much less about, so I won't make sweeping claims. Here is me trying to start my education on it using GPT, another demonstration of Post-algo in action.   

While a spending some time away from networks and computing may be a component of a post-algo movement, I think it much more likely that LLMs will be key tools used in it. They are the real change and opportunity. While Gioia is correct to call out the misapplications of LLMs that businesses are trying to push on us, it seems pretty clear that he does not have enough experience with LLMs used well. Perhaps he has none, which is really common for good writers, but also is creating a systematic blind spot (for now). 

Closing thoughts ripped from an LLM conversation:

The backlash won't look like smashing machines, it will look like reclaiming attention, value, and time.

This makes the post-Algo world not anti-tech, but post-platform, post-noise, post-scarcity-of-context.  

The metaphor I am using is the difference between having a team of secretaries who can filter what comes in and out, which is LLMs used well, versus having to try to hear and be heard on a crowded street corner, which is the bullshit that started with social media and only got systematized through recommendation engines. 

Again, the key will become whether our personal secretaries can be controlled locally and thus continue to serve our interests. 

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[1] I have a real soft spot in my heart for post-Left anarchism, but the post-punk I have heard (I'm no expert) tends to sound too soft for me; I might as well listen to pop at that point. Again, an opportunity to try to educate myself using an LLM. Here's a gem: "Post-punk can sound soft compared to hardcore punk, but that's like saying espresso is weak because it's not moonshine." I should probably take up some of its recommendations for harder post-punk, but there are just so many interesting things in the world again. Finally, now that I'm not wasting my time with the horrible things (that I also can't do anything about). 


[2] Let's get our timeline correct. The Romantic Period stretches all the way back into the late 1700s and goes through around 1850, but since it peaked in England from 1800 to 1850, it is often stated in those terms. Gioia follows that convention in a piece he writes as he is trying to understand the period through commendable erudition. The Arts and Crafts Movement is dated 1880-1920 on Wikipedia, so at least a generation after the later practitioners of the Romantic Period.