We Were the Original Algorithm (Not Instagram)

You watch three travel reels because you’re vaguely thinking about taking a trip. 

Instagram, apparently: “Say less. Greece?”

Mosseri, I was thinking about Goa.

You look up one recipe because you have some vegetables sitting in the fridge that are beginning to lose their will to live. Suddenly, you're being served air-fryer paneer and elaborate tiffin recipes. 

Calm down, I was just trying to save the capsicum. 

You search for one pair of shoes because the ones you own have finally given up.

The internet: Here are 46 more pairs. Also, have you considered becoming a runner?

No.

The internet has this incredible ability to take one tiny piece of information about you and immediately build an entire personality around it. And the funniest part? It thinks it's figured you out.

But Humans Got There First

Here's the thing...the internet didn't invent this.

Humans were the original algorithm.

We've been making wildly confident assumptions about people from tiny pieces of information for years. 

Someone says they don't drink coffee and you've already formed an opinion. Someone wears black all the time, and you've decided they either have their life together or absolutely do not. There is no middle ground.  Someone mentions they're trying to wake up early, and you've mentally promoted them to a person who has their life together despite having absolutely no evidence that they've done anything productive before 9 AM. 

 

We collect tiny clues about people and fill in the rest. We see a pattern and start writing the story ourselves. And we do it so casually that we don't even notice.

We Love a Shortcut to Understanding People

It's convenient.

If someone tells you they hate crowded places, you tuck that information away. If someone is always early, you start expecting them to be early. If someone is terrible at replying, you stop being surprised when their “I'll get back to you” arrives three business days later.

Our brains are constantly making little predictions, and that's how we navigate people.

But now and then, someone completely ruins your theory about them.

The friend you thought hated staying in suddenly becomes the one planning a spontaneous road trip. The colleague you assumed was painfully serious sends the most unhinged meme you've ever seen. The person who seemed incredibly organised casually admits they've been looking for their phone for twenty minutes while holding it.

And you're reminded:

Oh. Right. People are complicated.

The Algorithm Doesn't Really Do Complicated

An algorithm wants patterns. It isn't really trying to understand the entire person behind the click.It's trying to predict what you'll probably do next and that's where it gets interesting.

Because predicting someone isn't the same as knowing them.If you know that someone orders the same thing every time, you know their order. You don't necessarily know why.

Maybe it's their comfort food. Maybe they had it on a really good day once. Maybe they just don't trust menus.

The behaviour is visible but the reason isn't.

And that's the bit algorithms  and sometimes people can miss. 

Maybe We Don't Have to Be So Easy to Figure Out

We do this to ourselves, too. We try something once and turn it into an identity. 

I'm not a morning person.

I'm bad at cooking.

I don't stick to hobbies.

I'm just not adventurous.

And then we keep behaving according to the version of ourselves we've already decided on. 

But maybe you don't have to. Maybe you can hate something today and love it next year.

Maybe you can suddenly become interested in something completely random.

Maybe you can have a phase and then abandon it without needing to explain what happened.

We've spent so much time laughing at algorithms for getting us wrong that maybe we should admit we do the same thing to each other. One habit, one opinion, and suddenly we've decided we know the whole person.

But people are messy. You can love going out and still want plans cancelled. You can be organised and terrible at replying. You can change your mind, and maybe that's the point.
The algorithm needs you to be predictable, but you don't have to be.

We were the original algorithm.

Maybe the best thing about being human? We can always change the data.