When we hear the word “algorithm” today, our minds almost automatically go to technology. To TikTok that uploads the next video, Netflix that tries to figure out what movie to watch tonight, Google, Instagram or Artificial Intelligence. But the most successful algorithm we know of was not written by anyone. It started working billions of years before the first computer existed. In fact, long before the first human being who could think about it existed. It is evolution. In a technical sense, the comparison is not perfect: evolution is not a computer program and does not have a conscious purpose or plan. But as a metaphor, the idea is powerful.
From a few relatively simple rules, repeated generation after generation for an almost unimaginable amount of time, has emerged the entire complexity of the living world.
And we are one of its products. The basic rules are well-known. Individuals of a species are not identical. Changes and mutations occur. Some of these changes are inherited. In a given environment, some traits favor survival and reproduction more than others. Over generations, they become more common. Then the process repeats itself over and over again. There is no architect who decides what should be built in the end. However, from this process have emerged eyes that distinguish colors, wings that can fly thousands of kilometers, lungs, nervous systems, the human brain, and an animal that one day managed to build telescopes to see the beginnings of the universe. And this is where the story gets much more interesting. Because evolution did not “design” us to be happy.
PRODUCTS OF ALGORITHM: NATURE NEVER PROMISED HAPPINESS
We tend to view the human body and mind as if they were built for our well-being. If something causes us anxiety, pain, or dissatisfaction, it seems to us that something is wrong with the system. But nature doesn’t work that way. Natural selection favors traits that, under certain circumstances, help organisms reproduce. Not necessarily those that make them feel good.
Pain, for example, is terrifying to the individual experiencing it, but extremely useful as a warning. Fear may torment us, but for our ancestors, the ability to react quickly to a threat could mean the difference between life and death. Our tendency to constantly seek more also makes sense from this perspective. Imagine two of our ancestors. One finds enough food and thinks, That’s enough. I’m completely satisfied. The other, even after eating, continues to seek food, resources, status, mates, and security. In a world where the coming winter might bring famine, perpetual pleasure was not necessarily an advantage. Dissatisfaction was.
This could explain a paradox that we know all too well today: we get what we wanted and, after a while, our minds start looking for the next goal. The next job. The next house. The next trip. The next pay raise. Another thousand followers. Another success. It’s not like there’s a button inside us that, after we reach a certain level, we press and say: enough, now you’re happy forever. If there was, maybe our ancestors wouldn’t have gotten very far.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE WORLD CHANGED FASTER THAN WE
Our bodies and brains still bear the imprint of a world very different from the one we live in today. For most of human history, sugar and fat were precious sources of energy. Seeking them out made sense. Today, you can order them from your couch and have them delivered to your door within minutes. The brain that once rewarded finding caloric food is now faced with supermarkets, fast food, and delivery apps. The same is true of attention.
For a social animal like man, knowing what others thought of you was of immense importance. Exclusion from the group could once have very serious consequences for survival. Today, this ancient mechanism is faced with a screen where we can see, in real time, how many people like us, how many follow us, who has seen us and who has not reacted. The technology is from the 21st century, but some of our emotional mechanisms are much older. And therein lies an interesting way to understand many of our contradictions. We have built a civilization that can give us more comfort, food, information and entertainment than a king could have imagined a few centuries ago. However, the biological machine that takes all this is not designed to say: Now I have everything and I can stop. It keeps asking.
Today we talk with concern about algorithms that are learning to recognize us. The social network algorithm learns what makes us angry. The video platform learns what keeps us in front of the screen for thirty seconds. Advertisers learn what tempts us. Artificial Intelligence is becoming increasingly capable of predicting what we want. But all of these systems are working on a much older platform. On ourselves!
About desires, fears, impulses, jealousies, curiosity, and the need for approval that didn’t come with the internet. In a way, modern algorithms didn’t invent our weaknesses. They just learned to read them incredibly well. And that changes the way we might see ourselves. Maybe we’re not rational creatures who are occasionally tripped up by instincts. Maybe we’re creatures shaped by millions of years of instincts, which we learned relatively late to reason about. That doesn’t mean we’re prisoners of our biology. Quite the opposite. Because evolution also produced something unusual: a brain capable of understanding, at least in part, the process that created it.
We can recognize impulse without being forced to follow it. We can decide what to eat even when our bodies demand more. We can reject status, competition, or group approval. We can decide that our success will not be measured solely by what biology rewards. Evolution does not require us to be happy. But we have an advantage that most life on Earth does not have: we can know. That is where our freedom begins.