Algorithms

My brother and I have this ongoing fight. It's not that unusual. It goes something like this:

I like looking at maps. A map, without electricity, cell phone reception, anything, can tell me more or less where I am and tell me how to get to my destination if I have a point of reference. Actually, it doesn't tell me anything, I read it.

My brother likes his iPhone because it literally tells him where he is and directs him how to get to his destination. It has the advantage of convenience, since he requires neither a reference point nor the time it took to learn to read a map, but it is subject to his cell phone reception, electricity, etc.

I say "what if the infrastructure, the grid fails?" he replies, "the grid will not fail, or if it does, our problems will be a lot worse than needing directions." He does have a point.

Traveling across the country with him, I've come to admire the ease and speed at which his iPhone is able to locate gas stations, give distances, and find coffee shops. However, in the case of the latter, his phone died partway, and left us stranded and potentially "lost" since the means it gives directions is on a turn by turn basis. If he were to zoom out, it would require the same skill of reading the map. However, my city map doesn't tell me where any coffee shops are to be found either, no matter how well I may read it.

There is a crucial difference I think beyond the issue of the reliability of the infrastructure. When I read a map, I see myself in relation to everything around me. The more I read the map, the more I gain an understanding of the totality of the city and the relationship of the various parts to each other. I feel like I know better where I am, which way the sun will rise and set, an intuitive grasp of freeways and street networks without having to constantly reference a device. It warns me when I get close to neighborhoods I'd rather stay away from, and nudges me when I'm close to neighborhoods I'd like to get to know better.

Already, then there is something dangerous about reliance on the "tell me" devices. Scientists and psychologists are saying that our reliance on the internet is actually changing the way we think. We don't remember things anymore, just where to find them. I've been dating a wonderful woman for nearly five years but I don't remember her phone number. (However, from online retail, I've unintentionally memorized my credit card number and details.)

In the case of the iPhone, for example, its ripe for the kind of subtle hijacking. Whose to say that a nudge here or there in a code will direct you to McDonalds rather than to Burger King when you search for "restaurants" nearby? Who's to say that Google isn't already doing it. Amazon.com for awhile was providing different prices for the same item depending on what the system thought the user would pay for it, based on their previous purchases.

We google things without thinking about the filters that Google has placed on the results. Google decides what we see and where we click, and all of this is is controlled by algorithms which are increasingly beyond human oversight, let alone understanding. Same for the stock market, Netflix, and Amazon.com. This lack of oversight is troubling most of all.