How algorithms turn chance into gambling

In the 21st century, where the physical and digital worlds are sharply combined, coincidence is in serious danger of extinction. This is because algorithms organized by big tech companies using massive amounts of data have effectively replaced chance. The ecosystem of our lives has been disturbed by the emergence of new technologies and is experiencing serious transformation. The various digital platforms we use effectively occupy our concentration and unconsciousness through algorithms and intervene in countless decision moments. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, the algorithm works busily even while we are asleep.

The era of confirmation bias

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In the days before smartphones, surprisingly, this was only about 10 years ago, I would go to the library to find new books. I went to a record store to listen to new music and went to ‘Fashion Street’ to buy new clothes. Many of the things I enjoyed and consumed during these times came to me by chance, following the whereabouts of my body. Sartre’s Portrait of an Age, which still remains vivid in my memory, was picked up by chance at a bookstore, attracted by its bright red spine and thickness, and Lenka’s debut album was picked up by someone while trying to buy another album at a record shop I happened to stop by during my trip. When I saw that the album was put down, I bought it and listened to it. I didn’t even know who Sartre was back then, and neither did Lenka. However, that chance meeting has had a profound influence on my tastes and thinking to this day.

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What about now? As someone who studies art history, it rarely happens to me anymore to buy books related to mountaineering. As someone who likes indie rock, I never end up listening to hip-hop. My tastes are now all lined up at attention under a tight network of algorithms, and everything new I encounter is also set to suit my tastes under the operation of the algorithm. Now, the books, music, products, symbols, people, and even philosophies and beliefs that I receive cannot all be free from the algorithms of digital platforms. Spotify recommends new singers and albums based on the music I listened to, and YouTube recommends new lectures based on the lectures I watched. Instagram asks me about other ‘friend-followers’ that my ‘friend-follower’ likes, and surprisingly, she works in the art world like me. This is truly the era of confirmation bias.

A gambling place disguised as chance

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The way algorithms take over our cognition is even more insidious because it disguises chance. Shin Hyun-woo, author of 『Algorithmic Capitalism』, refers to algorithms as “cognitive machines.” He points out that algorithms intervene in our fundamental cognitive behavior itself, and argues that algorithms reduce our cognitive abilities and force us to adapt to a digital data-based capitalist society. As he claims, we don’t really know how closely the algorithm works. Even though we, our lives, produce all the data that makes the algorithm useful.

The algorithms used by big tech companies are being updated every moment to process information more efficiently, and we cannot clearly understand how they work. Terrible opacity stands between the algorithm and us. The opacity surrounding the algorithm makes it feel like a coincidence. It seems as if all the advertisements and content we encounter appear before us by chance.

But in fact, we already know through a strange mystery that this is not the case. We already know why when I want to buy apples and search for apples on Google, an apple orchard appears as an advertisement on my Instagram, and why when I plan a vacation to Italy, I see an advertisement for a Florence accommodation on YouTube. This is because the algorithm has already prepared everything for me. Wooyeon has already been miserably cut to pieces.

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It’s as if society has become a huge gambling den. It is a gambling place that promises random luck, but there is no coincidence or luck behind it. The endless roulette run by the algorithm makes a gesture that seems to give us some kind of coincidence/luck. I especially feel this way when consuming short-form content or scrolling down my SNS feed. I can’t believe I stumbled upon such valuable information and a great opportunity! But we know. Even though it may seem like a gambling house is run by chance, in fact it is thoroughly planned in such a way that the capitalist who runs it always wins, and the algorithm is also like that. The biggest factor that makes algorithm-based platforms more frustrating than gambling halls is that they are scattered everywhere in our lives based on digital technology. While gambling venues exist in local locations where the risks to society are managed by the state (although they still exploit desperate people), digital platforms do not. Just as smog during the Industrial Revolution covered cities with an opaque fog and took the lives of countless people, algorithms also drag our society into an opaque black box and cleverly exploit countless people. Without even realizing it, we are working for algorithms and the multinational corporations that exploit them. The more serious damage than the hidden labor is that our thoughts are now being reordered algorithmically. Feeling as if only a ‘viral’ life has value.

Yuyeon Island also needs a protected area.

It’s time for us to step forward. It is time to hack the algorithm and act to reclaim chance that cannot be reduced to capital. Many scholars who analyze the exploitation structure of digital platforms and algorithms are suggesting various directions of action against algorithms. In addition, the method I would like to suggest in studying art history is to look back on the history of art and try to raise a wave of resistance once again.

Psychogeographic map drawn by Guy Debord

Situationist Guy Debord proposed ‘dérive’ in the 1950s as a way to resist capitalist spectacle by walking aimlessly through the city and drawing one’s own psychogeographic map. In order to resist a life alienated by the encroachment of capitalism’s purpose and rationality, he tried to regain awareness of the city and life by walking around the city with his own body. In 『Drift Theory』, which contains detailed instructions on drifting, Debord talks about the phenomenon of chance occurring in the process of drifting and chance being blocked by various urban elements. As we drift randomly through the city, we are bound to encounter moments of chance, but the various topography and flows of the city actually lead us in certain directions. Just as we are more likely to walk on a road with a sidewalk than a road without a sidewalk, and if a huge building that is off-limits blocks us, we have no choice but to take a detour.

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I think that ‘drifting’, which necessarily includes experiences of coincidences and obstacles, has greater resonance in this era. It is also said that drift in the 21st century must go beyond physical space and also take place in digital space. No matter how hard we try to escape from algorithms, the truth is that we cannot completely escape from the algorithms that have already permeated our lives. However, if we are conscious of the algorithm and pursue chance encounters that defy it, we will learn at what point we regain chance and how chance is blocked. As we draw a new cognitive map in this era where digital and physical space combine, we remove the opacity of algorithms. When you stop ‘surfing’ the internet and search for things you normally wouldn’t. Instead of clicking on restaurant recommendation posts that appear in your feed, you meet other people and receive restaurant recommendations directly. When you blindly go to an unfamiliar place that you would not have gone to without prior research and create a new experience. In all of these processes, we regain our own awareness of the world, sometimes defying the algorithm and sometimes being included within it. To the extent that we have regained cognitive territory from the colonial rule of algorithms, chance can secure an area in which to survive.

The process of writing this article is also a kind of ‘drifting’ for me. To avoid being subsumed by the algorithm, I wandered around the library to find related books and asked people around me face-to-face about their opinions and experiences about the algorithm. Nevertheless, the videos and posts I saw through the platform algorithm became an important source for writing this article. And since this post was also posted on Anti-Egg’s Instagram, it will enter someone’s algorithm. This drift sometimes goes against the huge ocean current called algorithm, and at other times gets caught up in it, constantly searching for its place in the world.

An article that talks about how algorithms make coincidences extinct is delivered through algorithms. I hope that this article does not go viral, but at the same time, I hope that it reaches someone. Coincidence and algorithms are creating a strange magnetic field surrounding this single article. The contradictions created by drifting make me perceive my life in a new way. Perhaps this contradiction is the way the world works, which cannot be sorted under an algorithm.

• Shin Hyun-woo, 『Algorithmic Capitalism』, Book Journalism, 2024.
• Guy Debord, “Theory of Drift,” International Situationist1958.