Technology
In digital era, identities are co-authored by algorithms: Sekhar Seshadri
“When introspection is outsourced to algorithms, your sense of authorship on your own life may diminish. The autonomy of the self is challenged by these algorithmic nudges,” said Sekhar Seshadri, well-known child and adolescent psychiatrist.
He was speaking at a public talk titled ‘The Screen, self and algorithms’, as part of Our Digital Futures Fest organised by IT for Change, a Bengaluru-based NGO working on research and advocacy in the domain of digital justice.
The fest is being held for a week from October 25 to November 1, as part of the NGO’s 25th anniversary celebrations.
In the session moderated by author and philosopher Sundar Sarukkai, Dr. Seshadri walked the audience through an analysis of how experiences, behaviours, and even the sense of self are today conditioned by algorithms.
Echo chambers
“As social beings, our sense of identity, especially during vulnerable developmental stages, has always been constructed and conditioned by our social contexts, socio-economic environments, family networks, peer groups, and other relevant determinants in our ecology. However, with the advent of algorithms, what we see is the conditioning of our thoughts, behaviour, and self-perception by a platform which is only concerned with maximising consumption and user engagement,” he said.
The digital screen is no longer a passive window to the world, but an active participant in shaping the user’s sense of self, he added.
Throwing light on feedback loops, he pointed out how algorithms monitor the user behaviour, such as scrolls and shares and build a data-driven profile accordingly. This curated version is then reflected to the user through personalised feeds.
“This can trap individuals into echo chambers of self-perception where certain aspects of their identity are constantly reinforced while others are neglected,” he explained.
Ethical concerns
Mr. Seshadri also spoke about how constant exposure to curated, filtered, and amplified images of others’ lives on social media can lead the user, especially children and adolescents, to make social comparisons and have a negative correlation with their self-esteem.
“And then there is the ‘quantified self.’ These algorithms encourage a database view of identity through tracking apps that track your sleep, mood, fitness... This reduces a person’s rich, subjective experience to a set of measurable outputs, causing some users to trust the algorithms’ judgment over their own intuition,” he remarked, adding that in the digital era, identities are co-authored by algorithms which go to the extent of suggesting what a person should even think and feel.
While Mr. Seshadri agreed that AI systems could provide insight or help in emotional regulation, problems were likely when introspection was completely outsourced to them.
“It causes a serious erosion of narrative agency. Events in our life become structured and narrated not through introspective narratives, but through algorithmically created highlights such as Instagram highlights, fitness milestones, digital memory cues, and so on.”
According to him, this becomes an ethical issue and its psychological dimensions, profound. “If identity, emotion, and even narrative are increasingly mediated through opaque systems, questions arise about authenticity, authorship and autonomy...What does it mean to know oneself? And if a lot of that knowing is done by machines, who does the version of you that the algorithm is constructed belong to? Can a self be authentic if it is being optimised by invisible code on a previous basis?” he wondered.
Social media dependence
Noting that individuals need to indulge more in active self-construction to offset the passive exposure to algorithmic feedback, Mr. Seshadri suggested developing digital habits that prioritise reflective awareness, diverse media consumption, and the scrutiny of AI recommendations.
Sundar Sarukkai, who moderated the session, added to the conversation by observing that people are extremely dependant on social media in a highly individualised world.
“The invisible social is ordering us so deeply in terms of lives and so on. That has completely changed who we are. This is really an invitation to ask ourselves what it is to be human,” he said.
Upcoming events
The inaugural day of the fest held at the Bangalore International Centre also saw the release of ‘People’s Digital India’, an anthology of essays brought out by IT for Change, and a photo exhibition featuring the field projects of the NGO.
The upcoming events include a conference on EdTech for Equitable Education and a discussion on the film ‘Humans in the Loop’ on October 30, a two-day conference examining cutting-edge approaches to AI innovation from October 31 to November 1 and a panel discussion on a new model for AI beyond Gen AI on October 31. All the upcoming events will be held at Infosys Science Foundation, Bengaluru, where the photo exhibition will also be featured on 30–31 October.
“When introspection is outsourced to algorithms, your sense of authorship on your own life may diminish. The autonomy of the self is challenged by these algorithmic nudges,” said Sekhar Seshadri, well-known child and adolescent psychiatrist.
He was speaking at a public talk titled ‘The Screen, self and algorithms’, as part of Our Digital Futures Fest organised by IT for Change, a Bengaluru-based NGO working on research and advocacy in the domain of digital justice.
The fest is being held for a week from October 25 to November 1, as part of the NGO’s 25th anniversary celebrations.
In the session moderated by author and philosopher Sundar Sarukkai, Dr. Seshadri walked the audience through an analysis of how experiences, behaviours, and even the sense of self are today conditioned by algorithms.
Echo chambers
“As social beings, our sense of identity, especially during vulnerable developmental stages, has always been constructed and conditioned by our social contexts, socio-economic environments, family networks, peer groups, and other relevant determinants in our ecology. However, with the advent of algorithms, what we see is the conditioning of our thoughts, behaviour, and self-perception by a platform which is only concerned with maximising consumption and user engagement,” he said.
The digital screen is no longer a passive window to the world, but an active participant in shaping the user’s sense of self, he added.
Throwing light on feedback loops, he pointed out how algorithms monitor the user behaviour, such as scrolls and shares and build a data-driven profile accordingly. This curated version is then reflected to the user through personalised feeds.
“This can trap individuals into echo chambers of self-perception where certain aspects of their identity are constantly reinforced while others are neglected,” he explained.
Ethical concerns
Mr. Seshadri also spoke about how constant exposure to curated, filtered, and amplified images of others’ lives on social media can lead the user, especially children and adolescents, to make social comparisons and have a negative correlation with their self-esteem.
“And then there is the ‘quantified self.’ These algorithms encourage a database view of identity through tracking apps that track your sleep, mood, fitness... This reduces a person’s rich, subjective experience to a set of measurable outputs, causing some users to trust the algorithms’ judgment over their own intuition,” he remarked, adding that in the digital era, identities are co-authored by algorithms which go to the extent of suggesting what a person should even think and feel.
While Mr. Seshadri agreed that AI systems could provide insight or help in emotional regulation, problems were likely when introspection was completely outsourced to them.
“It causes a serious erosion of narrative agency. Events in our life become structured and narrated not through introspective narratives, but through algorithmically created highlights such as Instagram highlights, fitness milestones, digital memory cues, and so on.”
According to him, this becomes an ethical issue and its psychological dimensions, profound. “If identity, emotion, and even narrative are increasingly mediated through opaque systems, questions arise about authenticity, authorship and autonomy...What does it mean to know oneself? And if a lot of that knowing is done by machines, who does the version of you that the algorithm is constructed belong to? Can a self be authentic if it is being optimised by invisible code on a previous basis?” he wondered.
Social media dependence
Noting that individuals need to indulge more in active self-construction to offset the passive exposure to algorithmic feedback, Mr. Seshadri suggested developing digital habits that prioritise reflective awareness, diverse media consumption, and the scrutiny of AI recommendations.
Sundar Sarukkai, who moderated the session, added to the conversation by observing that people are extremely dependant on social media in a highly individualised world.
“The invisible social is ordering us so deeply in terms of lives and so on. That has completely changed who we are. This is really an invitation to ask ourselves what it is to be human,” he said.
Upcoming events
The inaugural day of the fest held at the Bangalore International Centre also saw the release of ‘People’s Digital India’, an anthology of essays brought out by IT for Change, and a photo exhibition featuring the field projects of the NGO.
The upcoming events include a conference on EdTech for Equitable Education and a discussion on the film ‘Humans in the Loop’ on October 30, a two-day conference examining cutting-edge approaches to AI innovation from October 31 to November 1 and a panel discussion on a new model for AI beyond Gen AI on October 31. All the upcoming events will be held at Infosys Science Foundation, Bengaluru, where the photo exhibition will also be featured on 30–31 October.
