How Algorithms Are Reshaping Language
When algorithms make mistakes, we transform them into cultural currency thus revealing the unexpected poetry of digital errors.
From “doomscrolling” to “unalive”, “seggs” and “ducking” we’re in a period of rapid linguistic evolution across many cultures around the world. Overnight a typographical error can transform into a cultural touchstone. Behind many of these are algorithms, from autocorrect to to algorithms pushing content to our brains.
Some are mistakes that we then adopt and incorporate into broader social language or just within small social groups. This is part of how we’re talking with machines as well. Just another way in which we’re forming a sort of relationship with digital machines.
Does it matter? In some cases, not at all. It’s just funny, entertaining. In more subtle, but important ways however, they are a way for humans to circumvent algorithms restrictions and governance. And humans love to bypass and mess with systems and governance. We’ve been doing that for many thousands of years.
When we use changes in how words are spelled or their context, this demonstrates how control over expression is constantly being negotiated. Where it was human to human in social groups, we’ve added the second player, the algorithm. Whether we like it or not, algorithms are playing a role in not just how we operate socioculturally, but linguistically as well.
Our “collective consciousness” is now being partially restructured by algorithmic logic. When we type LOL or “unalive” instead of “dead”, we’re adopting thought patterns influenced by content moderation systems on social media platforms.
What’s kind of cool about this though, is that we’re showing human tenacity and perseverance in this face of a technology we feel we have little control over. Even as algorithms may mediate our interactions with one another, we maintain some sense of control by turning these limitations into cultural innovations.
A downside however, can be that outsiders of a group who’ve created meaning around a changed word, can be left out. In the workplace or a social group, this can be a shift in power dynamics. For brands that misuse the word, it can cause reputation damage. Understanding these patterns of algorithmic influence is essential for digital literacy today.
We can view the algorithmic influence with a systems lens to understand how they’re working.
Algorithms constrain expression
Users develop creative workarounds
These workarounds become culturally significant
Platforms update algorithms in response
New constraints emerge, restarting the cycle
While we might view all of this as a negative, we can also see benefits as we evolve our relationship with algorithms and machines. We’ve seen how we develop cultural resilience. In-group sharing also forms solidarity and group boundaries. Our workarounds and adaptations are a small rebalancing of the power dynamic between us and machines. These forms of evasion language are often known as “Algospeak.”
We also see limitations in the technologies because of how the algorithms work. Yet another indicator of why AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is a very, very long way off. If at all possible. Unlike algorithms and machines, humans use what in anthropology is called “bricolage” where we make do with what we have, yet combine the materials at hand, including errors, to construct new meanings.
Rather than fully reshaping out language, algorithms tend to add more of an accent to our languages. We the human are still very much in control. Humans are contrarian and creative. Algorithms are recipes. We still own the narrative.
Yet the algorithms aren’t going away and they are playing a profound role beyond just being a quirky internet phenomena. We are, with algorithms, changing fundamental aspects of human culture and communication.