We spent much of last year getting to know you, our customers and followers. What we learned is that you aren't trying to be someone else. You are trying to be more fully yourself. At a time when algorithms decide what we are shown and AI tries to put us in neat boxes to train models, defining our identity takes on a new meaning.
Here is what algorithms get wrong about people: We are still wired by the rules of nature. Let me explain (and the takeaway here is positive!).
Algorithms are built to optimize. They narrow toward a goal (clicks, revenue, engagement, whatever). This optimization focus eventually narrows options, and perhaps not surprisingly, this is why there is research that AI and personalized feeds flatten identity development.(1)
And while I don’t debate those studies, as a bioengineer, I view things through a biology-first lens. When you zoom out a bit, you see that optimizing toward one thing is fundamentally against nature.
If you’re thinking: evolution is one big optimization problem (survival of the fittest, anyone?), consider that “fittest” is context and time specific. This means biology optimizes for possibility, variation, diversity because these give the greatest odds of survival over time. And as long as humans are alive, biology will always work like biology. Because we are, well, biological; we are not computers.
How humans create diversity and possibility is the thing that makes us sentient.: Curiosity, creativity, contemplation:, these are wired into us because they helped us survive the unknown.
This is why algorithms don’t create culture, people do. Culture emerges because difference matters. It makes authorship and identity more important, not less.
To bring this to life, we are collaborating with people who inspire us through their example of embracing all dimensions of who they are into an identity that is one-of-a-kind and beautiful.
And if there is one thing I know humans are not, it is that we are not all the same and we certainly aren’t boring.
Onward,
Jasmina