Social Media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook make their money on advertisements. The more people, more time, and more often that a service is used, the more money they get. Because of this, companies invest in their recommendation algorithms, most of which are driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
AI is often confused with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), like HAL-9000, Gladis, and SkyNet – the fun ones.
Recommendation algorithms/AI seek to do the following – see if something grabs people’s attention, then if it works, try more of it. But these AI are very specialized – I mean if you took the best chess playing AI and asked it to distinguish between an apple and a banana it would have literally no idea how to do so. While a single AI may be very good at solving a particular problem, it is not versatile or able to provide complex results.
Now this begs the question, if relatively simple AI software can determine what we like and dislike, what else can it predict about our behavior? And how does that affect our sense of free will?
Let me pose this thought experiment:
You’re at a magic show and the magician asks for a volunteer. You are corralled up, reluctantly. He says he can predict the card that you will pick before you even do it. He picks up a piece of paper and writes something on it. He then fans out a deck of cards which he reassures has not been modified and asks you to pick a card. You pick the 3 of Clubs and show it to the crowd, then the magician reveals his piece of paper which says 3 of Clubs and the crowd applauds.
If the magician could predict your card, does that mean you were destined to pick that card? What if he knew an hour ahead of time that you would pick that card? What about a day? What about a month?
At what point does prediction become destiny?
Let’s say this magician, a thousand years ago in the Byzantine Empire, inscribed a tablet which said “On August 21, 2021 at 5:42pm, <your name> will draw a 3 of Clubs”. And this tablet got passed down from generation to generation until today when the magician’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson stops you on the street at 5:42pm, and asks you to draw a card, and its a 3 of Clubs.
Despite the high unlikelihood of this event, it makes me think how that might affect my view of my own life. Someone knows that something is going to happen to you ahead of time – does that mean your actions are meaningless?
You could be optimistic and say they certainly aren’t meaningless, even a toaster has meaning – and all it does it make toast. Or take the opposite stance, nothing you did until then even mattered because you would make that choice regardless.
Free Will in the Face of Destiny
As people, we think we’re quite clever, can thwart predictability and be individuals. How true is that though? If that simple AI can determine our choices, what does that mean for free will?
Let me pose another thought experiment:
You read a book titled “YOU” which says everything you have done, are doing, and will do in the future.
You would still have thought, and choice, but the decision is already in place. Your thought process is still key to the decision being made. And knowing about the result is merely a factor in the choice that you are predicted to make.
Despite their opposite nature, both free will and destiny can exist at the same time. We can choose what we want but are destined to choose a certain way. We can choose to live our lives a certain way but will all ultimately meet the same fate.
The Daily Wonton 