alice smith

I don’t think the tools themselves are the problem; it’s how the entirety of human culture has been digested and regurgitated by them.

When reading about the motivation for launching these various curation initiatives, it’s clear that it’s not only about rebellion, but also about the critical act of archiving.

Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that. What’s sitting with the computers is a way of seeing new groups, new common identities between people.

For thousands of years, Earth’s resources have been extracted by bodies, most of whom were not free. But now it’s our bodies and ourselves being extracted.

- Hans Ulrich Olbrist

Curators slow down the unending scroll and provide their followers with a way of savoring culture, rather than just inhaling it, developing a sense of appreciation.

You must choose your way forward. The data shouldn’t tell you how to live—you train the AI to paint a more beautiful future - SSENSE

In the last ten years, pattern recognition has become a cultural activity. You see that on the bad end, like QAnon, and on the more fun end with the pervasiveness of trend forecasting.