Interactional digital algorithm 331 accomplishment. In these circumstances, even if the expression can be applied, it is not an algorithm in the strict mathematical sense – in which the problem, the steps to be undertaken and the results are necessary, logical, and predefined. We should then, with greater accuracy than Patel’s as- similation, assert that the digital algorithms in question seek to “algorithmize” certain processes that society tends to standardize through cultural practices. As a result, it’s no longer a ques- tion of recipes - but of industrialized cakes with mass produc- tion intensely standardized. The concept of an algorithm (in mathematics) has ex- isted since at least the 9th century. Since the mid-20th century, computer science has shown an extraordinary concentration of algorithms. Why is it only now that the word has come into circulation and, in the general environment of common sense, algorithms are spoken of as if they were a novelty? The feeling of novelty is due to the emergence of a spe- cial type of algorithm, which is developing in the 21st century. Its specificity is not exactly “being a digital algorithm” - but being an “interactional digital algorithm”. It focuses on operating interactions between social participants, for whom the algo- rithm makes selections from among variations captured in the social environment of its attention. It is only as a result of the entry of digital algorithms into the interactional sphere of soci- ety that specialists in these processes decide to didacticize their meaning by metaphorical reference to cake recipes and other more or less systematized social processes. In addition to didac- ticism, the explanation seems to seek a kind of reassurance that reduces possible concerns about what is little known. Once this supposed similarity between (interactional) digital algorithms and traditionally developed cultural patterns has been established, a clear distinction needs to be made be- tween cultural patterns managed by everyone in society and the processes, more recently introduced into our practices, resulting from the increasing informatization of society. The distinctionmatters because digital algorithms have not yet had all their aspects grasped in social perception; they are not controlled by users in terms of their possible effects. My aim in this paper, after reflecting on the distinction between the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjEzNzYz