Maybe you’re not crazy after all. Maybe the feed is

In 1968 the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke famously declared that ldquoany sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magicrdquoHe meant it as a compliment to human ingenuity He imagined a future where our gadgets would be so brilliant that they would feel like miracles But he missed the dark side of that equation When something is indistinguishable from magic you canrsquot reason with it You canrsquot argue with it You can only pray to itThink about your own habits for a second Have you ever aggressively tapped your phone screen three times when an app froze hoping it would somehow ldquowake it uprdquo Have you ever intentionally misspelled a word on social media so a moderation bot wouldnrsquot hide your postPiciStockIf so you arenrsquot alone For the last 20 years Silicon Valley sold us a very specific utopian vision They promised that if we just surrendered enough data AI would eliminate human bias We would live in a perfectly rational hyperefficient world where everything just worked Instead they accidentally drove us back to the Dark AgesIf you look closely at how normal people actually interact with technology in 2026 you wonrsquot see efficiency You will see millions of exhausted human beings performing bizarre daily rituals just to appease the machines that control their jobs their health and their moneyIt would not be entirely wrong to call our age one of Algorithmic Superstition Because the algorithms that govern our modern lives are black boxes mdash systems so complex that even the engineers who coded them cannot always explain why they make certain decisions mdash human logic no longer applies And when human beings are faced with an omnipotent invisible force they cannot understand we do what our ancestors did thousands of years agoWe invent superstitions We share rumours We cast spellsThe healthcare ldquomagic wordsrdquoIn the American healthcare system doctors are increasingly writing not just for other doctors but for algorithms Insurance companies now use AI systems to decide how long a patient should stay in hospital what treatments get approved and when coverage should end A major lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group even alleges that an AI tool was used to deny critical care too earlyAnd slowly healthcare workers adapted Many doctors realised that explaining a patientrsquos situation in ordinary human language often failed The algorithm did not care about emotional nuance family conditions or difficult home realities It responded only to patterns keywords and statistical signalsSo nurses and billing staff began exchanging unofficial ldquomagic wordsrdquo mdash specific phrases believed to increase the chances of approval Certain technical terms repeated in the right way could suddenly unlock treatment Others could trigger rejectionIn these moments medicine starts resembling ritual Doctors are no longer only treating patients They are learning how to speak to a machine mdash carefully choosing digital incantations in the hope that an invisible system will show mercyThe gig worker rain danceSpend enough time with gig workers and you start hearing stories that sound less like technology and more like folkloreAn Uber driver swears the app gives him better rides if he logs out and logs back in three times before starting his car A delivery rider believes rejecting the first two orders of the day ldquowakes uprdquo the algorithm Others wait at certain ldquoluckyrdquo street corners convinced the app secretly rewards that locationNone of this is written anywhere in the software There is no proof these rituals work Yet millions still do them Why Because the algorithm never explains itselfFor appbased workers the boss is no longer a human being sitting in an office It is a silent piece of code deciding who gets paid more who gets fewer orders and who disappears from the system And when your income depends on something invisible and unpredictable the human mind naturally starts searching for patternsThat is how superstition survives in the digital age mdash not through ghosts or astrology but through apps ratings and mysterious notificationsThe mutilation of the English languageYou do not need to work for Uber or inside a hospital to experience algorithmic superstition You just need a smartphoneTo avoid having their content flagged or demonetised by automated AI moderation ordinary people have invented a superstitious shadowlanguage known as ldquoAlgospeakrdquoWe are literally altering the English language to avoid angering the machines Small business owners teenagers and activists can no longer use words that might trip a crude moderation bot You donrsquot say ldquosuiciderdquo anymore you say someone was unalived You donrsquot say ldquosexrdquo you type seggs In certain onlineforums abortion is referred to as campingWe are intentionally misspelling words replacing letters with numbers and substituting emojis just to communicate basic human realities without being financially or socially erased by an algorithm that doesnrsquot understand context We are whispering in code so the digital gods donrsquot overhear usThe new digital DMVRemember when tech companies promised to make life simpler No more frustrating office culture No more pointless forms or endless waitingBut somewhere along the way the old office counter did not disappear It just moved behind a screenToday an algorithm can reject your reacutesumeacute before any human sees your name A social media platform can bury your business post without telling you why Your insurance claim can vanish into an automated system that offers no real explanation except a polite digital ldquoNordquoAnd that is what makes modern Internet life feel so psychologically exhausting You are constantly trying to impress something you cannot seePeople now treat algorithms the way earlier generations treated unpredictable bosses They search for hidden patterns Use these keywords Avoid those words Reply within seven minutes Keep engagement high Never post too much Never post too little Nobody fully knows if any of it worksYet millions still do it because when a machine controls visibility money or opportunity humans naturally start behaving superstitiously around itWe once feared machines would start thinking like humans Instead humans started adjusting themselves to think like machinesNishant Sahdev is a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill United States He makes sense of the AI era in your favourite Sunday Midday