The Algorithmic Life

Ironic thoughts of a fictional character

Note: This piece is a work of fiction. It is an experiment. This one indulges in voice, exaggeration, and a narrator (who is a woman this time) who is more dramatic than I am on my worst wine-fueled evenings. Consider it a character study rather than a serious work. My usual frivolous essays will resume soon.

from Éric Rohmer’s 1981, ‘La femme de l’aviateur’

There was a time, vaguely remembered through a haze of Aperol and pre-2009 brain elasticity, when I made decisions based on desire, boredom, or lust. Now I scroll.

These days, my whims are no longer mine. They belong to ‘The Algorithm‘, a modern oracle that wears the toga of convenience and the dagger of softly imposed compliance. I used to think I was idling. But no, I am being profiled, lovingly, obsessively, with all the attention of a Renaissance painter undertaking his patron’s desires. Every “like” is a breadcrumb. My laziness has become productive and my data, lucrative. Who would’ve thought? I am an efficient cog in a very well-scented machine.

I don’t choose music anymore. I let a Swedish AI with a teal logo tell me what I feel. It knows that Tuesday mornings require minor keys and soft French male voices whispering about cigarettes. I feel seen, which is delightful, and a little bit like being stalked by an omniscient flaneur.

I am told what to eat by a Mediterranean wellness influencer who has never digested anything heavier than a fig. Her kitchen is all travertine and faux-nostalgia. She pours olive oil with religious reverence, as it should. The lemons are arranged as if by Bernini, and she has a general tone of disdain for those who still consume gluten. I obey her, naturally. My algorithm has concluded that I’m partial to artisanal ennui.

Even my lovers, or as we now call them, “matches”, are served up by an app that understands my libido better than I ever did. It knows my type: carefully disheveled, probably named Theo, pronounced with a french accent, capable of discussing Camus without rolling his eyes. I swipe with the air of a Roman emperor sampling grapes. Too tan. Too earnest. Too fond of motivational quotes. The algorithm nods silently.

I no longer fall in love.

What The Algorithm doesn’t understand is that I once had chaos. Beautiful, unstructured, lightly disastrous chaos. I once boarded in the wrong train and ended up in the wrong country. I was drunk, of course. The youth don’t drink anymore, I heard. A shame, really. I got geo-fencing. I once went out with a stranger I met in a bookshop because we both reached for the same slim volume of Cavafy. Now, I get ads for linen trousers.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not nostalgic. Nostalgia is for people who’ve given up hope. No, I am amused. Deeply and nihilistically amused. Because what is more Mediterranean than accepting your fate with a shrug and a spritz? Amor Fati they say, isn’t it? The Stoics would have adored the algorithm, I think. They’d celebrate that there is finally, someone else making the decisions.

The trick, of course, is to play dumb. To let the algorithm believe it’s in charge, while you retain the ultimate indulgence. Irony, that is. To follow its suggestions with a raised eyebrow, a touch of satire in your risotto. To be complicit, but not devout.

And once in a while, just to keep things spicy, I search for something utterly absurd: “How to build a Byzantine pigeon tower” or “Is boredom genetically inherited?” or “Is free will seasonal?” Just to throw it off, you know. Just to remind it that I may be predictable, but I am not obedient.

That is what separates us from the machines.

Well, that and the tan.