In our connected data societies, the importance of algorithms and automated systems is obvious. They determine search engines’ rankings, what driverless cars do when a child appears on the road, and stock market changes. Today data-driven algorithms and automated systems are everywhere. While algorithms and automated systems themselves are often a topic of controversy WIZARDS OF THE WEB JAKOB SVENSSON WIZARDS OF THE WEB JAKOB and debate, this book is about the people behind them; it is an account of the cultures, values, and imaginations that guide programmers in their work designing and engineering software and digital technology. Technology, it is argued, is not neutral and developed free of context. And since algorithms and automated WIZARDS systems exercise power in connected data societies, it is pivotal to understand their creators, who could be labelled, it is argued in the book, Wizards of the Web. This book is the result of an ethnographically inspired study based on interviews with software engineers and programmers, observations made at tech head quarters and conferences in Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, Germany, India, and the US, and a OF case study of the introduction of algorithmic automation on the front page of a Scandinavian newspaper. The author, Jakob Svensson, is professor of Media and Communication Studies at Malmö University. The book is part of the research project Behind the Algorithm (funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2018–2020). THE WEB AN OUTSIDER'S JOURNEY INTO TECH CULTURE, PROGRAMMING, AND MATHEMAGICS NordicomNordicom is a centre is a forcentre Nordic for media Nordic research media at the University research of Gothenburg, at the University of Gothenburg,supported supported by the by Nordic the Council Nordic of Ministers. Council of Ministers. The book JAKOB SVENSSON has been published with support from the University of Navarra. NORDICOM NORDICOM ISBN 978-91-88855-52-7 9 789188 855527 > Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se Nordicom, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 713, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se WIZARDS OF THE WEB WIZARDS OF THE WEB AN OUTSIDER’S JOURNEY INTO TECH CULTURE, PROGRAMMING, AND MATHEMAGICS Jakob Svensson NORDICOM Wizards of the Web An Outsider’s Journey into Tech Culture, Programming, and Mathemagics Jakob Svensson © 2021 Nordicom and the author. This is an Open Access work licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ISBN 978-91-88855-52-7 (print) ISBN 978-91-88855-53-4 (pdf) DOI: https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855534 The publication is also available Open Access at www.nordicom.gu.se Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden Cover by: Charlotta Hammar To mum and dad “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”. – from Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, written by creative director Rob Siltanen with Ken Segal (and a bunch of other Apple employees) Contents Preface 11 Chapter 1. Introduction: The humans behind the screen 13 Who is this book for and why should you read it? 17 Outline 20 Chapter 2. Situating the study 23 The importance of digital technology in contemporary data societies 23 Who are the programmers? 26 Empirical data gathering 30 Culture as an analytical tool 35 Delineations, limitations, & ethics 38 Chapter 3. A culture of many cultures 41 Hippie culture 41 Hacker culture 44 Entrepreneurial & startup culture 48 Middle-class, masculine, young, & suburban culture 51 Chapter 4. Navigating a culture of contradictions 59 Progressive hippies vs. libertarian entrepreneurs 59 Pranking dudes vs. techno-missionaries 63 Shy outcasts vs. attention seekers 68 Self-confidence vs. asking for help 72 Chapter 5. The geek genius among beanbags & unicorns in Lego land 77 Beanbags 77 Unicorns 80 Prometheus 84 The kings (& queen) of Geekistan 87 In Lego land 91 9 WIZARDS OF THE WEB Chapter 6. Mind-blowing flow, grit, & data-driven development 95 Data-driven development 96 Flow 100 Grit 104 The mind-blowing demo 108 Chapter 7. Innovative & creative solutions for a better future 113 Solution creativity 113 Progress, the belief in a better future 117 Disruption & innovation 120 In data & patterns we believe 123 Chapter 8. Wizards of the web 129 Among cyborg mediums, magicians, & programmer gods 129 Magic through mastery of programming languages 134 Wizards of the web 138 From hackers to wizards 142 Chapter 9. Summary & outlook 145 Summary 145 Mathemagics 147 Bruno, making the world magic again 150 Modernity & mathemagics 154 The magic of dying 158 The power of imagination 160 References 163 10 Preface My name is Jakob Svensson, and I am a media and communication researcher in the south Swedish town of Malmö. In 2018, I received a research grant from the Swedish Research Council to study the people behind data, algorithms, and automated systems. In the grant application, I had written that my project would contribute with a much-needed sociological approach by focusing on the human and cultural aspects of contemporary data societies. Being engineered by programmers, algorithms and automated system are marked by rules, ideals, imaginations, and cultures. They are encoded with human intentions that may or may not be fulfilled. This book is about the humans behind the screen. A beloved child has many names, as the Swedish proverb goes, and I use “programmers” as an umbrella term for coders, web developers, and software engineers. While the programmers are at centre stage, this book is also about my journey into tech culture, travelling to conferences and tech centres around the world. There are many that must be thanked for this book. First and foremost, Johannes, my editor, who with great interest and detail, and not the least, a good mood, has pushed me to be better and to kill my darlings. Thanks also to Kristin for helping me with my English, and of course the Swedish Research Council (Swedish tax payers) for funding this research. I also want to thank my university departments: Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, where it all started, and the school of Arts and Communication (K3) at Malmö Uni- versity, where I am currently based. (A special thanks to the latter for making space for me and this project at times of stress, depression, and a burnout.) There are many colleagues at these departments who have provided insightful comments during the years. I have also had the privilege to present this research at the Weizenbaum Institute (Berlin), the American University (Rome), Monash University (Melbourne), and the universities in Umeå, Gävle, and Södertörn (all in Sweden). Most of all, however, thanks to my friends and family. Without you this wouldn’t have been possible. I wrote this book at a very difficult time in my life and your support and care meant the world to me. This book is dedicated to my parents – two crazy ones who really dared to be different and showed me early on how to follow your heart, even if that meant swimming against the tide. 11 Chapter 1 Introduction The humans behind the screen It’s mid-March 2019 and I find myself in a spacious AirBNB house in the eastern suburbs of Austin. The sun is shining and the air is warming up after a cool night – at least it’s a lot warmer than Malmö, I think to myself. Here to attend the legendary and exciting South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, I still maintain my daily morning habits from back home – that is, to start the day listening to Swedish Radio’s morning broadcast of public service channel P1. Two news stories catch my attention. The first one is about the aftermath of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 to Nairobi a couple of days earlier. Apparently, the autopilot didn’t work as it should: Boeing’s newly developed automatic system that should prevent the aircraft from stalling failed – and the aircraft crashed. This wasn’t the first time software bugs led to disaster. In 1962, five minutes after its launch, the Mariner I spacecraft veered off course and had to be blown up to prevent it from crashing in an inhabited area. The problem? A missing hyphen in its guidance control program (Wikipedia, 2021b). We put our lives in the hands of data-fed, so-called automated systems – systems that we who are not versed in computer programming cannot fully understand, but where power is increasingly accumulated. In late modern risk societies – in which people increasingly depend on each other’s specialised skills (see Beck, 1992; Elias, 1939/1998) – this might not be so suprising. What is more intriguing is how little we know about the people behind the systems we depend upon: Who are they? Where do they come from? What norms, values, and imaginations govern their work? The other story that caught my attention that morning in Austin was about bullying and online expressions of hate, which apparently are increasing among teenagers with the help of communication apps that allow users to leave anonymous comments about each other.