Algorithms have an inordinate amount of influence on our lives. The predominant ones largely dictate the friends we interact with online, the goods we buy, and the news we see. An algorithm (YouTube’s) even made Justin Bieber happen—and that’s probably the least impressive example.

In a society as tech-obsessed as ours, this prevalence means that algorithms have obtained an almost magical quality. They represent the deus ex machina of the science-fiction thriller that is real life, a plot device that makes our tools do the things they do. According to anthropologist Nick Seaver of Tufts University, algorithms have so thoroughly graduated into the realm of cultural abstraction that they should be studied anthropologically.

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“AI is like individual human intelligence or intelligence embodied in organizational forms like agencies or companies—it can deliver enormous social benefits as well as burdens,” said Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a California supreme court judge and advisory board member of AI Now in a Nov. 15 speech. “We’re in for some discussion of what it means to be human. And we will soon confront big questions that will drive the well-being of our kids and their kids.”