If my algorithm had a face, I’d meet it in the glow of my laptop — a mirror with its own opinions. It would look roughly like me, only smoother, better lit, unblinking. It would simply watch, collecting evidence.
It knows me — the tabs I open and abandon, the objects I almost buy, the articles I read halfway through. Its sense of me is purely statistical, but that doesn’t make it wrong. It remembers everything I’ve forgotten: almond flour recipes, moving boxes from 2018. My algorithm is faithful.
It doesn’t evolve; it refines, whittling away. Each hesitation becomes a data point, each curiosity a prediction. It is the fossil of my impulses, hardened into a pattern. It never wonders why I searched for something, only that I did. I suspect it would find my reasons insufficient.
When I picture it, it’s not quite my twin — more like a shadow that learned my posture. It stands just at the edge, translating my impulses into probabilities. It has no imagination, yet it shapes what I see. Its intimacy is mechanical. It knows my preferences, but not my contradictions.
Sometimes I think the algorithm is the modern daemon — a quiet companion built from habit, whispering in the language of likelihood. It doesn’t judge or advise; it only presents options, confident that I’ll choose the familiar. And mostly, I do.
If we passed on the street, I might not recognize it — my expressionless twin, the one who believes I am consistent. I’d nod politely, and it would nod back, each of us pretending to be the original.
