If You're There and I'm Here, Who's Steering?

You didn't vote for how technology shapes your life. But here you are, governed by its rules. This isn't inevitable. This is steerability.

You might wonder if our actions can truly shape technology. Skeptics might argue outcomes are inevitable or too complex to control, but recent history suggests otherwise. Public outcry after the Cambridge Analytica scandal led to stricter privacy laws like the GDPR, forcing companies to recognize data rights. But in practice it just gave us cookie consent popups while tech companies carried on as usual.

Of course, steering technology is an uphill battle against powerful corporate lobbying and significant regulatory resistance, but these obstacles aren't insurmountable.

Yet at times we've fallen short. Legislators and policymakers have failed to regulate social media effectively, and we, as citizens, have often struggled to hold their feet to the fire.

The clearest example? Social apps. Instagram and TikTok deploy addictive algorithms that subtly nudge our behaviour, polarize us, and worsen our mental health, without informed consent or consequence. You didn't agree to be manipulated. You just scrolled past the fine print.

We don't have full control, but we have leverage. We can't dictate the system, but we can disrupt it. If we don't want 'governance' to turn into another meaningless cookie consent popup, we'll have to demand disclosures on AI-based decision making and disrupt passive engagement.

By deciding how AI fits into our lives, we retain control over the algorithms we engage with and how they shape our behaviour. AI isn't autonomous. It doesn't evolve on its own. It’s steered by entities like Google, Meta, OpenAI, government regulators, and even user feedback loops. We know these forces exist. But exactly how, why, and to what extent they shape AI, and us, remains opaque.

Whether it's TikTok’s AI-driven feed, YouTube recommendations, Snapchat’s streaks, or OpenAI's opaque policy framework, without clear insight into how these algorithms influence us, we can't fully grasp how they shape our beliefs and behaviours. If nothing else, we should know what these algorithms are doing, even if exactly how remains unclear.

Understanding the algorithmic forces brushing against us every day might feel like peeling potatoes with your bare hands. But by demanding transparency and meaningful control, we make sure we’re the ones using technology, not the other way around.

We have the potato peeler. Let’s start peeling.