Raisng Humans in the Age of the Algorithm
Artist Unknown Raising Humans in the Age of the Algorithm I did not know when they placed my first daughter in my arms that I was also being issued a lifetime subscription to panic. She arrived pink and furious, a small, squalling bundle of lungs and litigation, and somewhere in the discharge paperwork was a clause about Wi-Fi. Father of daughters. Guardian of passwords. Warden of the glowing rectangle. I used to fear stairs. Open flames. Electrical sockets shaped exactly like curiosity. Now I fear the algorithm. The algorithm has no face. It does not sleep. It knows my children’s names before it knows mine. It has opinions about their eyebrows. I stand in the kitchen doorway watching them scroll, thumbs flicking like Vegas dealers passing out curated anxiety. “Did you know,” one says, not looking up, “that if your jawline isn’t symmetrical you will die alone?” I have been alive for fifty-six years with a jawline that resembles a melted candle. I am married. I have a mortgage. I own th...
