The algo dream: to replace human agency and choice.

We must start to ask, what is so bad about making a non-“optimised” decision? Do we not learn things - do we not sometimes learn more - from the things we do that don’t quite work?

This quotation is taken from an article, Colleges Mine Data to Tailor Students’ Experience, where “analytics” is posited as the saviour of everything from college choice, to course choice, to who you work with on a calculus problem.

I offer myself as a counter-example: applied to university to read Philosophy. Realised it didn’t interest me, applied for Social Anthropology and started a course at LSE. Realised I actually needed to find out what I should be doing with Mathematics: left, went to Bristol, started a maths degree. Realised my heart was in Anthro, returned to LSE, finished that degree.

Any salesman with an algorithm would think they could “optimise” that journey. But for me at least, the chance to make those choices on my own and get empirical experience of studying both subjects was essential to be at peace and commit to my final decision.

We regret the roads not travelled. Let’s be careful about letting the gospel of “efficiency” too near these choices: rational “optimisation” may potentially be distinctly sub-optimal for a sense of life satisfaction.