Are algorithms a revolutionary science that will enrich our lives, or are they a technology of control that infringes on our autonomy?
We delve into the hidden side of algorithms that delve deep into the workplace, home, relationships, and emotions.
In an era where all decision-making is entrusted to AI, human anxiety remains unresolved.

AI algorithms are seen as a revolutionary science that enables more efficient and convenient lives, a utopia that can manage all uncertainties.
However, behind this lies the anxiety and fear that algorithms may strengthen surveillance and control over individuals and even infringe on their subjectivity.


Anthony Elliott, Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia, exposes this inconvenient truth in his book Algorithm Phobia.
From real-world technological examples like Uber's automated management system, Amazon's labor control, and Netflix's recommendation algorithm, to the metaphors of competition and control reflected in the drama "Squid Game," and even the latest AI technologies like the metaverse and ChatGPT, Elliot analyzes both real-world phenomena and cultural symbols to show how algorithms are reshaping human life.

The author points out that, in the shadow of the "convenience" and "efficiency" promised by AI technology, humans are increasingly being incorporated into structures of control and surveillance.
Algorithms may seem to help us make better choices, but they actually predict and adjust our behavior, weakening our ability to think and make decisions for ourselves.
In exchange for efficiency, humans give up their subjectivity and are increasingly transformed into "datafied beings" in a life where emotions, desires, and even mistakes are eliminated.
This book shows what values ​​we are losing behind the praise of technology.

Modern society has a strong tendency to enthusiastically spread artificial intelligence.
AI, the "innovative science," is considered the source of powerful economic growth and will transform our lives today.
But the peculiar ambiguity has not yet been resolved.
The fear that inevitably follows us as we struggle through our daily lives where the online and offline worlds are interconnected, the anxiety that endlessly blossoms in the face of increasingly severe 'information overload', and the fear that we may bring about 'unintended consequences' by entrusting personal decision-making to automated machines are spreading.
While writing this book, I realized that predictive algorithms, far from alleviating our anxieties, actually amplify them, contrary to expectations.
--- From the "Preface and Acknowledgments"

The business of automated management of algorithms is in itself Kafkaesque (meaning an irrational, contradictory, oppressive, and chaotic situation, as characterized by Kafka's works - translator's note).
Machine learning algorithms promise to mathematically predict our future and finely tune our socioeconomic order, but the promises they deliver are often oppressive and elusive.

In an advanced automated society, predictive analytics and smart algorithms define and realize the market's "actual needs" and "potential desires."
The potential side effects of this trend extend beyond the coercive power of data, the risk of algorithmic bias, and the mass sale of private data for future market predictions.
Not only is anxiety spreading globally, but ominous feelings, disillusionment, and suspicion are blooming in their own, yet intertwined, forms.
--- From "Chapter 1: The Dominance of Algorithms, Pervasive Anxiety"

The likelihood of adapting to working life within a holistic data system that monitors, measures, quotas, targets, motivates, and provides various incentives to increase work speed and employee productivity seems surprisingly low.
Those who fail to complete the tasks and instructions that the automated management system endlessly delivers fall into a swamp of despair, regardless of the construction industry.
If this emotional exhaustion continues on a daily basis, the individual's life becomes overwhelmed by depression and even physically destroyed.

This is not the only side effect of algorithmic management suffocating workers.
The fear of being 'fired' has also become widespread.
This stems from the common belief that automated intelligent machines are increasingly replacing humans in many sectors.
American sociologist Richard Sennett called this “automation-induced uselessness anxiety.”
This fear has not only increased dramatically in recent years, but it also tends to lead to stress, fatigue, frustration, depression, and even violence.
In other words, the anxiety of uselessness due to automation is deeply ingrained.
--- From "Chapter 2: Amazon's Harsh Automation System"

Automated recommendations can even restrict and limit consumers.
People's interest in popular culture is multifaceted, and while individual identity is inherently diverse, mixed, and contradictory, it presents absurdly unified viewing preferences.
These cultural concerns have been amplified by the rise of algorithms that exert powerful agency.
But the process of leveraging algorithmic recommendation systems also reflects widespread fears about being dominated by automated forces.

Therefore, some argue that machine learning algorithms enable a life of continuous experimentation, free from the rigid conventions of existing society.
But machine predictions driven by algorithms actually exacerbate the anxiety of automated life by adding to the very uncertainty that AI was originally intended to eliminate, or at least reduce and limit.
Because the idea of ​​'getting out' of decision-making by handing over decision-making power to automated intelligent machines has been exposed as a kind of fraud.
One of the many problems of automated life is that 'escaping' from exercising subjectivity involves various forms of avoidance, escape, and rejection.
--- From "Chapter 3: How Netflix's Recommendation System Consumes Modern Culture"

I'd say this extremely violent Korean drama hits the nail on the head with the ever-evolving desires of a highly capitalist world dominated by cutting-edge technology.
If survivalism and barbarism clash yet share similarities, it is because the stubborn self-confidence of late capitalist society has led to the ever-more sophisticated development of technologies of power and exploitation.

In a fiercely competitive environment, where extreme economic instability and social inequality are prevalent, temporary alliances and destructive hostilities unfold.
But if war is defined as organized violence, then Squid Game seems to offer a new explanation for the “surplus” or “excess” of fear realized by digital technology.
According to Freud, the reason human destructiveness, aggression, and cruelty are so terrifying is because it is impossible to capture the fear that produces and amplifies them, but today's war algorithms accurately predict where the enemy is.
--- From "Chapter 4 Identity and Emotion in the Algorithm Age as Seen Through the Squid Game"

The perspective I will develop in the remainder of this chapter is based on the theory (which I have elaborated elsewhere) that digital technologies are deeply permeating sociality, culture, identity, desire, self, sexuality, and even the structure of the body.
As new computing capabilities and artificial reality become more widespread, we are entering a world where people are embracing automation technologies while also struggling to keep up with and control the expanding digital elements of their daily lives.
Building on these reflections, I aim to redefine the dynamics of hyperreality and the metaverse, reflecting on the potential consequences of current development trends.

But today, more and more people are struggling to construct a virtual identity, especially one that they can meaningfully embody.
People engage with virtual worlds and the events that unfold there in a form of digital immersion that is fundamentally different from the real context of everyday life.
To do this, you can participate in designing your avatar and modify your appearance (from 3D avatars to full-body avatars) to interact with others, share interests, or explore new social or job opportunities.
But no matter how hard we try to bridge the 3D virtual world with the standard analog world, a peculiar sense of instability and incurable anxiety persists.
--- From "Chapter 5: Metaverse, Imagining the Future of Anryu Differently"

However, the worldview that sees technology as the same as social development is bound to eventually be shaken and frustrated.
First of all, it has such a strong hyper-rationalist tone that it sees economic efficiency, social order, and progress as directly derived from the rational design and development of technology.
Of course, technology can sometimes be quite destructive, but it is nonetheless an essential element in the rational development of modern institutions.
In this approach, for example, microchip technology is seen as giving rise to a consumer society.
While it's easy to connect the emergence of new technologies to broader social change, the technological spirit of our time isn't always so aligned, nor is it necessarily governed by rationality or commercialism.


Machine intelligence offers endless temptations, as it promises to free us from the fear that we will run out of choices, that our individual potential will soon disappear, and that social alternatives will be exhausted.
At first, it's tempting to live in a fantasy world where you can delegate parts of your life (even the trivial or unimportant ones) to automated processes and experience a sense of liberation thanks to machine intelligence that completes tasks on time.
But this idealization and high valuation of automated machine intelligence comes at a price.
The temptation to outsource parts of our lives can lead to fears about handing over decision-making power to machines, or concerns about how best to communicate our intentions.
So, engaging with machine intelligence inevitably leaves us with the unpleasant feeling that we are dependent on something and could be replaced at any moment.
--- From Chapter 6, “Artificial Intelligence: Will It Coexist or Dominate?”

If anxiety about generative AI stems from concerns about employment and the future of work, it also extends to broader social, cultural, and political issues.
Fear is not only at the heart of people's concerns about the prospect of smart algorithms taking over their jobs, it's also a sentiment that spreads like a poisonous mushroom, dominating society's overall response to automated digital technologies.
Fear is a giant switchboard that controls the human psyche, playing a key role in technologically dismantling and reassembling individual egos, interpersonal relationships, and society as a whole.
This also elevates cultural anxiety to the level of an "existential threat to humanity," transforming it into the worst possible situation society could face.

Today, we are plagued by a multitude of fears: fear of information overload, fear of the metaverse, fear of the harmful effects of social media on young people, fear of technological unemployment, fear of algorithmic bias, fear of ChatGPT, fear of artificial general intelligence surpassing human intelligence, and more.
There are also fears of deepfakes and misinformation, fears of data deluge, fears of robots, fears of rapid cyberattacks, fears of autonomous drones, fears of CCTV cameras and surveillance capitalism, and fears that AI will invade our privacy or make us all useless.
Finally, there is the fear that artificial intelligence will destroy humanity, which can be called the “mother of all AI fears.”
This is the existential threat of AI, the fear that the world could suddenly end.

--- From "Chapter 7: The Era of Artificial Intelligence Requiring Constant Self-Correction"