Alright. I thought about a particular YouTube video today, and moments later it appeared in my feed!
I didn’t say it. I didn’t search for it. I didn’t type it anywhere near Google, and I don’t have an Alexa. It was not out loud. But nonetheless, there it was - the same video I’d been thinking of - larger than life on my recommended list.
Look, I don’t know much about deductive or inductive reasoning, but there are more logical possibilities than Siri taking up mind-reading. And in any case, if Apple, or Google, or even YouTube, have that technology then we are all of us in deep trouble.
What is probable is that the two coincidental outcomes (the thought and the video) actually do have a single cause, a common ancestor. What if some time earlier today, I watched another clip that took me down a chain of thoughts that led me to that video? And what if the algorithm, cleverly analysing my typical browsing pattern, decided I would eventually want to see it? That would eliminate the coincidence/spooky explanation. Two apparently independent routes would have led to the coincidence.
Subtly different, there’s also the possibility that YouTube didn’t just predict it, but actually pushed me down that path without me realising. In that scenario, my train of thought followed along the track of linked videos, I forgot where I started, came back to YouTube and the one thing it showed me was the next logical ‘station’ on the line.
It could just be a massive coincidence of course. It could even be some external force that wants me to see a certain thing, though in this case I think it’s unlikely.
What it looks like is sleight of hand, orchestrated by a master magician, a Derren Brown in a world of the wide-eyed audience - stupefied at being hoodwinked. Only in this case, the illusionist, the Derren in the room, is a computer program that exceeds at calculation while I flounder at logical reasoning.
It’s no wonder conspiracy theories are so popular.
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