The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions

Welcome to the economy of algorithms. Its here and its growing. In the past few years, we have been flooded with examples of impressive technology. Algorithms have been around for hundreds of years, but they have only recently begun to escape our understanding. When algorithms perform certain tasks, theyre not just as good as us, theyre becoming infinitely better, and, at the same time, massively more surprising. We are so impressed by what they can do that we give them a lot of agency. But because they are so hard to comprehend, this leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.

In the 20th century, things were simple: we had the economy of corporations. In the first two decades of the 21st century, we saw the emergence of the economy of people, otherwise known as the digital economy, enabled by the internet. Now were seeing a new economy take shape: the economy of algorithms.