We Are Already Living in an Algorithmic Culture
Read this article in French:
Tout le monde utilise l’IA — Art, culture et vie quotidienne dans un monde en réseau
A Technology Already Integrated into Everyday Life
Since the arrival of conversational AI systems such as ChatGPT, many people have the impression that artificial intelligence has suddenly entered our lives. Yet different forms of AI have already been present in our daily lives for many years.
We use AI when we search the Internet, follow a GPS route, when streaming platforms suggest films or music, or when social networks automatically organize the posts that appear in our news feeds. Online shopping platforms, voice assistants, automatic translation, recommendation systems, editing tools, and even many health applications already rely on forms of artificial intelligence.
AI is no longer a technology of the future.
It has gradually become an invisible infrastructure of contemporary everyday life.
A Gradual Evolution of the Web and Digital Platforms
I have been observing the evolution of the web and digital culture since the early days of the Internet in the 1990s. I witnessed the emergence of the first search engines, the beginnings of social networks, digital platforms and, gradually, the arrival of algorithmic systems that now organize a large part of global cultural circulation.
This shift did not happen suddenly. It developed slowly, almost silently, until it became an integrated part of contemporary daily life.
Today, this reality affects almost every area of society: work, education, communications, media, commerce, transportation, health, research, culture and the arts.
It is already changing the way many professions function on a daily basis. Teachers use writing and research assistance tools, cultural workers depend on digital platforms to distribute their content, companies automate certain administrative tasks, and creators use recommendation systems to reach their audiences.
Media, Journalism and Culture in the Algorithmic Environment
Even professions related to information, communication and media are now evolving within this digital environment where platforms, search engines and algorithmic systems occupy an increasingly important place.
We can also see this in journalism, where journalists already use writing assistance tools, automatic transcription systems, intelligent search engines and platforms that personalize the circulation of information. In newsrooms, algorithms now influence content visibility, the speed of dissemination and sometimes even the way topics reach the public.
Art and culture do not evolve outside the contemporary world. They are transforming within the same digital and algorithmic environment that is already reshaping our daily habits.
Today, digital platforms play a major role in our cultural experience. Recommendation systems help organize what we discover, watch, listen to and share. Search engines also influence the visibility of artworks, artists, articles and ideas.
The deepest role of AI may not simply be to produce images, texts or music. It also lies in its ability to silently organize global cultural circulation.
Visibility in Algorithmic Culture
We are already living in an algorithmic culture.
This does not mean that algorithms completely control our lives or that humanity is disappearing. But it does mean that many aspects of our experience of the world now pass through systems of calculation, recommendation, filtering and personalization.
This presence sometimes becomes almost invisible because it gradually integrates itself into our habits. Like the Internet before it, AI is slowly ceasing to be perceived as a spectacular novelty and is becoming a normalized everyday environment.
We may be entering a period comparable to the post-digital era: a moment when technology ceases to be exceptional because it has already become part of the ordinary cultural landscape.
For younger generations, digital platforms, automated recommendations and algorithmic systems no longer represent a technological novelty, but simply a normal part of the cultural environment in which they are growing up.
Today, even people who claim to distrust artificial intelligence often use, sometimes without fully realizing it, platforms, search engines, social networks and digital systems that already rely on various forms of algorithms and AI.
It is possible to reject certain uses of conversational AI or to question its development. But it becomes more difficult to claim that we live completely outside these technological environments, since digital platforms and algorithmic systems are now an integral part of contemporary everyday life.
This situation nevertheless raises several important questions. Algorithmic systems sometimes tend to favor content that generates rapid attention, strong emotional reactions or constant engagement. Personalized recommendations can also reduce certain forms of spontaneous discovery and encourage a gradual homogenization of cultural tastes.
In this context, visibility itself becomes a major cultural issue.
What is not recommended circulates less.
What circulates less sometimes becomes almost invisible.
Artists, writers, journalists, creators and cultural organizations must now evolve within environments where the circulation of content increasingly depends on digital platforms and algorithmic systems.
Human Presence in an Automated World
But this transformation is not only about technology. It also concerns the way we inhabit the contemporary world.
As systems become more automatic, more fluid and more integrated into everyday life, certain human dimensions seem to acquire a new value: real presence, attention, slowness (human time), critical thinking, human relationships, emotion, memory and lived experience.
Algorithmic systems did not appear on their own. They also reflect the choices, values and orientations of the societies that develop them.
The more algorithmic the world becomes, the more precious human presence becomes.
Artificial intelligence will probably continue to profoundly transform contemporary societies. The arts, media and culture will also continue to evolve within this networked environment where humans, platforms and algorithmic systems now permanently coexist.
But despite these transformations, one thing remains essential: behind screens, data and algorithms, there are still human beings who create, search, doubt, feel and try to give meaning to the world they are moving through.
The digital is not the subject.
The human being is.
It is humanity that created technologies, including artificial intelligence, to extend its capacities, share knowledge and continue transforming the world it inhabits.
🔷 SEE ALSO
→ The Network Walker — Traversing Global Culture in the Algorithmic Age
→ The Use of AI in Art: Beyond Creation, the Algorithms Organizing Global Culture
→ Humanist Digital Art — Theoretical Corpus and Developments
© Gilles Vallée | Humanist Digital Artist, Poet, Sculptor
