Algorithms are all around us

Part of a new mini-series demystifying how algorithms are used

Transportation, from personal anecdotal conversations with seniors and through consumption of popular media, seems to be a bane for the senior demographic.

As a college student, I relied on the RTA system, commuting from Lakewood or Westlake to Cleveland State University in the late '80s. Greater Cleveland is unlike metropolitan cities like Boston or New York City.

Beantown and the Big Apple's public transportation systems remind me of Japan's superb public transportation system, yet the iconic yellow cabs of the Big Apple also remind me that America is not a small island nation!

Helping the senior demographic discover digital literacy, a life skill needed to live comfortably in the 21st century, I've always been interested in ride-hailing services as a solution and subsidized by federal, state, local governments and even foundations.

I was excited when White House brought back the Conference on Aging at the national level in 2015 after a long hiatus; doubly excited when Uber was invited with a senior-centric ride-hailing services pilot program in tow. As I wrote this piece, I googled to see if anything came out of Uber's pilot but I came up with only crumbs.

Many changes have taken place since early 2020. Utilization of online ordering and food delivery platforms (DoorDash, Grubhub, and UberEats to name a few) and local supermarkets adding their own competing services, is one very notable change. Furthermore, this cottage industry/economy seems to be vibrant even when COVID became an endemic and physical distancing requirements dissipated.

As luck would have it, I recently had an opportunity to ride shotgun with my best friend who started to drive for one of the delivery service outfits this fall. Watching him earn almost $46 in less than two hours was fun to say the least.

We made five deliveries while I rode shotgun and I observed that four out of the five delivery recipients were very generous with their tipping. Most importantly, however, I didn't miss that every interaction my friend had, whether with the delivery service platform he was working for or the customer waiting for his arrival, was through his smartphone.

Simply put, his smartphone was his dispatcher, accountant, and provided other supporting roles to him, a contractor.

"Algorithms" are defined as "a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems." If I had my druthers, I would postulate that my friend's above-average earnings was the result of the finely-tuned algorithm in play. This algorithm took into account parameters such as his customers' ratings, his location relative to where the customer order was coming from, and other statistics.

Throughout 2024, this mini-series will explore the algorithms around us and how they affect us, whether for our personal gains and/or for the platforms' gains. See you after the holidays. Stay tuned!