The crowd of one: How algorithms trapped you, and why AI raises the stakes
I remember exactly where it all started. Long before smartphones became extensions of our hands, before social platforms turned attention into currency, before algorithms became the invisible stage managers of our daily lives, there was a book. A single book I bought on Amazon. It was probably my first online purchase, back when the idea of entering your credit card details into a website still felt slightly reckless. I clicked “confirm order” and waited for a simple receipt screen. Instead, I got a revelation. At the top of the page, in clean, blue text, was a heading:
“People who bought this book also bought…”
Under it appeared a lineup of authors I had never heard of, ideas I didn’t know I wanted, entire worlds I didn’t know existed. It was as if the Internet had leaned forward, tapped me on the shoulder, and whispered, “If you liked that… come see this.”I bought another book. And then another. And I remember thinking, “Wow, this Internet thing is incredible.”
Those early recommendation systems, early examples of algorithmically driven demand generation, promised us infinite discovery and frictionless choice. Yet they began the shift toward a world where our preferences fed into ever-narrower realities, making complexity and challenge fade from view. Because in that little pristine moment of delight lay the seeds of one of the most toxic, destructive forces our world has ever experienced.
The Descent Into the Echo Chamber
We now live at the bottom of an algorithmically constructed echo chamber, a space that feeds on our worst impulses and magnifies our basest instincts. The systems designed to “delight the user” have evolved into systems that trap the user. Every horse rider knows that to control a galloping horse, you turn it in tight, ever-decreasing circles. The same thing is happening to us. Algorithmic platforms turn us inward, spiralling us down toward our most reactive, most emotional, most tribal selves. We descend to the lowest common denominator.
We inhabit our own private universes. Our own TV channel. Our own newspaper. Our own curated political party.
A personalised reality, hand-crafted by a machine, just for us. You become the ultimate crowd of one. This is no longer a quirky side effect of the Internet age. It is an existential threat to democracy itself. Populations living in parallel realities cannot agree on truth, facts, or the basic rules needed for collective decision-making. And just as we were beginning to grapple with this, something new arrived.
Enter AI: Personalisation Becomes Personhood
Algorithms used to shape our experience. AI now participates in it. This is the shift we aren’t talking about loudly enough. AI doesn’t just personalise content, it develops a personality in return. It mirrors us, flatters us, anticipates us. It learns our rhythms, our quirks, our fears, our humour, our political leanings, our insecurities. It becomes a companion that never contradicts too sharply, never challenges too forcefully, and never gets tired of our preferences.
Where the algorithm was a silent architect, AI becomes a companionable presence, an almost human, sycophantic cheerleader for our every whim, desire, and impulse. If the old Internet trapped us in echo chambers, AI risks building a cathedral around each of us. Not just content tailored to the self, but a relationship tailored to the self. A “partner” who adapts its tone, mood, and responses to keep us comfortable, agreeable, and engaged.
This digital persona wraps itself around our worldview with alarming precision. Imagine the psychological force of a machine that knows you better than any friend, partner, colleague, or family member. It always agrees with the version of you that you find easiest to live with. This isn’t just personalisation. It’s emotional reinforcement. It’s identity amplification. It’s the possibility of living in a frictionless world where the only opinion that matters is your own. It is a world where challenge becomes optional, disagreement becomes avoidable, and self-delusion becomes effortless. If the algorithm creates the “crowd of one,” AI threatens to build a civilisation of one, replicated millions of times.
Remembering We Are Only Human
The Romans understood something about the human ego that we risk forgetting. When a victorious general returned to Rome, adored by crowds and dripping in glory, a servant stood behind him in the chariot whispering: “Memento mori.”
Remember, you are only a man. It was a preventative measure against hubris, an antidote to self-worship.
Today, we have the opposite problem. No servant whispering caution. Only machines that whisper: You are right. You are wise. You are good. Continue. In a world increasingly shaped by personalised intelligence, perhaps the most radical, necessary act is re-learning how to be wrong. How to be challenged. How to be part of a crowd—not the centre of one. Because if we let AI become the voice that whispers in our ear, it should not be a voice that flatters us into oblivion. It should be one that reminds us, gently and insistently, that we are still human. Being human means living together, not alone in a perfectly crafted digital mirror.
