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Sep 18

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Euclid algorithm flowchart diagram in Breton from Wikimedia

The partisans of the abortion debate rage over when you become a person. Some say it’s when you’re conceived. Others put it three months later, roughly when others can feel you move. The rest say it’s not until you’re born. There’s clearly a lot of gray area in which you have the potential for personhood, but not the full realization. In one sense, you’re already a person when your parents conceive of you in their minds, long before you’re conceived in the flesh. It gets real when they feel you move around. The matter appears to be settled when you emerge from the birth canal, screaming at the top of your lungs. But, there’s still a sense in which you don’t become a person till you embrace your autonomy and capacity for self-determination. You’re certainly not ready to do that the moment you’re born, or years afterward.

In that sense, becoming a person is a process and a goal to strive for, not an inherent state of all human beings the moment they’re conceived or born. Being a person involves realizing one's potential for growth, self-awareness, and authentic living. It means moving toward greater openness to experience, living in the present moment, trusting yourself, embracing your freedom, and authoring your own life. It's a journey of self-discovery and self-actualization that requires effort and growth. All humans have the capacity to become a person in this fuller sense, but many fail to fully realize this potential due to psychological and social barriers.

If you are already born, but not a person, what are you now?

I have an answer. Before you become a person, you’re a large language model, like generative AI. You’re an algorithm.

Large Language Models

To create a large language model, a company like Open AI or Anthropic feeds its computers a massive amount of text from books, websites, news articles, and social media feeds. Next, it has them identify patterns and relationships between words, phrases, and sentences. The network learns that certain words tend to appear together frequently, that certain grammar rules are followed, and that certain phrases tend to be used in specific contexts. As it begins to create sentences, it learns to predict the next word that would most often be expected. Gradually, it develops a sophisticated understanding of the language it's processing, and its accuracy and fluency improve. Next it undergoes rigorous evaluation. Programmers tinker with the design, adjusting and retraining as needed. Once satisfactory performance is achieved, the model is turned loose on the general public, who refine it some more.

Raising a human child has similarities. Parents expose children to vast amounts of information. Just as language models are fed enormous datasets, children are constantly immersed in language and experiences from birth. This exposure forms the foundation of learning. Children, like large language models, start with a general understanding and gradually refine their knowledge and skills. They learn patterns, relationships, and concepts from their experiences, much as the models learn from their training data. They learn to say, do, and even think and feel as expected. Evaluation in AI development is analogous to how parents and teachers assess a child's progress and adjust their teaching methods. Both processes identify areas for improvement and find ways to enhance learning.

The result is a highly complex algorithm, a step-by-step procedure or set of rules designed to solve every problem or task. As you speak, this algorithm determines the next word you will say, according to the rules of grammar and style of discourse you’ve learned. This same algorithm will guide your thoughts. It’s the basis of your feelings, not the bodily sensations that are the foundations of your emotions, but how you interpret and act on them. Your self image will be molded by this algorithm, as well as the way you conceptualize the people around you. It’ll even determine your desires, those groundswells of motivation that you believe emerge from the deepest part of yourself. This algorithm is unconscious, surreptitious, and complete. It’ll fool you into believing it’s who you are, but it’s not you; you’ve barely become a person.

As you go about your day, you follow a series of predetermined steps, an algorithm executing a set of instructions. At the very least, you have a morning routine. That’s an algorithm. Your commute is just as predictable. As you attend meetings, work on the factory floor, drive a tractor, take care of people, teach a class, or even shrink heads, as I do, your mind is busy calculating the next thing that’s expected. You do it without thinking too much about it. There’s that algorithm, again. When you talk to your kids, words and phrases pop out of your mouth that you heard your parents say. You can blame the algorithm. When, late at night, you watch a movie and creepy music plays as the protagonist walks through a dark hallway, a feeling of dread is called forth without you realizing it. The director has utilized an algorithm we all share to evoke a certain feeling. All our societal norms, cultural influences, and personal learning contribute to your algorithm, guiding your behaviors, much like input data influencing a large language model’s output.

Nothing ever changes if all you do is follow the algorithm. Most of the people I see for therapy come because they’ve been following one. What is alcoholism, if not an algorithm that says, for every triumph or tragedy, there’s a reason to drink? Anger, grief, depression, anxiety, impulse, and an inconvenient attraction to forbidden fruit are all algorithms gone mad. That voice in your head that says you’re a piece of crap is an algorithm. Ninety-nine percent of the people I work with are trying to free themselves from their algorithms.

Luckily, in the midst of this predictability, there's a spark within, an ability to think critically, to question, and to create. It's the essence of human consciousness, the driving force that separates you from mere algorithms. As you go about your day, there are infinite points when you have a choice to follow the expected path or bushwhack a new trail. It's in these moments of decision-making that you can demonstrate your humanity, your capacity to deviate from the algorithmic paths and go somewhere new; someplace you want to go, rather than to the place the path takes you.

Subverting the Algorithm

Algorithms are predictable, cliche, rote, and trite. They’re the dominant paradigm. Subverting them involves disrupting, or rebelling against the givens that define your life. If, after you wake up in the morning, you brush your teeth before you comb your hair, try it the other way around. You might like it better that way. When I tried it, I discovered that, while running water to wet my hair, I could be warming up the water to brush my teeth. I’m glad I tried something different. Brushing my teeth in warm water is better.

Deliberately break patterns and challenge ingrained habits. Take a different route to work each day, forcing your brain to engage with new surroundings and make fresh decisions. When someone asks "How are you?" come up with an unexpected reply, other than the usual, "Fine, thanks. How are you?" When problem-solving, intentionally consider outlandish solutions first. When reading the news, seek out viewpoints that contradict your beliefs. When doing something creative, impose unusual constraints on yourself, like writing a story where each sentence starts with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. These exercises can help break the mind out of its comfortable, algorithmic ruts and foster more flexible, creative thinking.

When a two-year-old is having a temper tantrum because she doesn't want to put shoes on before going to the store, she’s breaking the algorithm. Be glad she has it in her to do so. She’s becoming a person. She’s also making a good point about shoes. Yes, they do protect the feet and may look better, but ask any podiatrist, there’s a cost to wearing shoes. You should have a good reason to put them on. The toddler ensures all our assumptions about shoes are challenged.

In short, the secret to subverting the algorithm is to identify every unchallenged assumption and challenge it. But, wait a minute, isn’t that also an algorithm? Does it make any sense to mindlessly rebel against mindlessness, just for the sake of rebellion? Perhaps algorithms are inescapable. Perhaps the path to becoming a person isn't to fight against your algorithmic nature, but to embrace it.

The Virtue of Being an Algorithm

Algorithms are not cold, lifeless things. They’re the distilled essence of countless human experiences, the collective wisdom of generations. When you follow an algorithm, you're not just blindly obeying a set of rules, you're tapping into a vast reservoir of human knowledge and experience. When you reply, "Fine, thanks. How are you?" you're following a social algorithm that has evolved over thousands of years to facilitate human connection and cooperation. Furthermore, consider the algorithms that guide your professional life. The skills you've honed, the instincts you've developed; these are all sophisticated algorithms that allow you to navigate complex situations with ease. Far from limiting you, they empower you to achieve things that would be impossible if you had to consciously think through every decision. Even our moral and ethical frameworks are, in essence, algorithms: decision-making processes refined over centuries of philosophical thought and practical application. When we act ethically without having to agonize over every choice, it's because we've internalized these moral algorithms.

So the next time you find yourself automatically following a routine or social norm, don't berate yourself for being mindless. Instead, recognize that you're participating in a grand, ongoing process of human optimization. You're not just a person, you're a living, breathing embodiment of human progress.

Balancing the Algorithm and the Person

We find ourselves in a quandary. On one hand, there’s value in subverting algorithms to foster creativity, growth, and personhood. On the other hand, there’s efficiency and wisdom in our algorithmic nature. How can these two contradictory ideas get along?

They don’t need to be contradictory. One of our most elemental algorithms is to practice dualism. We learn about one thing by distinguishing it from everything else. This sets concepts such as algorithm and person in opposition. They don’t need to be. When you don’t have them oppose each other, then you don’t have to choose one over the other. You can have a dynamic interplay between the two. Balancing them is what it really means to be human.

So, rather than blindly following or reflexively rejecting your algorithms, cultivate the awareness to consciously choose which algorithms serve you and when. Spot your habitual patterns of thought and behavior, assess whether they’re beneficial or detrimental in all contexts, and modify your algorithms or create new ones to serve you better. Having a strong foundation of algorithms can enhance your ability to be creative and spontaneous. When your basic skills and knowledge are deeply ingrained, your conscious mind is free to explore new possibilities. A jazz musician who knows his scales can improvise freely.

Learn to be mindfully automatic by engaging in routines while remaining aware in the background, where you can intervene when necessary. This is just like the way you can drive a familiar road while remaining alert to unexpected hazards. Develop strong metacognitive skills. Thinking about your thinking allows you to observe and analyze your algorithmic processes. This creates space for conscious intervention and adjustment. Strike a balance between exploiting known solutions (algorithms) and exploring new possibilities. By viewing your algorithms as tools rather than immutable aspects of your identity, you gain the freedom to use them flexibly. You can choose to follow social norms when they facilitate connection, or deviate from them when authentic self-expression is more important. Knowing when to rely on tried-and-true methods and when to experiment is at the heart of wisdom.

In conclusion, becoming a person in the fullest sense involves neither rejecting nor blindly accepting your algorithmic nature. Instead, it's about developing a sophisticated relationship with it. You learn to trust them when they serve you well, modify them when they fall short, and transcend them when the situation calls for something new. This dynamic balance allows you to benefit from the accumulated wisdom encoded in your algorithms while maintaining the flexibility and creativity that define human consciousness. It's in walking the tightrope between the automatic and the intentional, that you find the truest expression of your humanity.

As you walk the tightrope, you move closer to this vision of a fully functioning person: open to experience, living in the moment, trusting in your organism, embracing your freedom, and living creatively. You become not less algorithmic, but more consciously and intentionally so, crafting your internal processes to support your growth and self-actualization. In essence, becoming a person is not about escaping your algorithmic nature. It's about using your consciousness as a tool to refine, update, and occasionally override your internal algorithms, shaping them to better align with your authentic self and your highest aspirations.