No. 13 — Reclaiming Discovery From the Algorithms

Curation builds taste

If we don’t actively decide what we read, see or listen to, it’s decided for us. And we'll be served general slop by an algorithm that's controlled by people with extremely skewed values and ideas about what is best for us to see (hint: they want us to see ads - they want us to buy stuff) . We’re pulled along by the tides of t... See more

I’ve been thinking about the enduring, perhaps increasing currency of personal recommendations (practically artisanal craft now if you think about it!) as well as the value of connoisseurship and curation in a culture where unthinking automation has left us feeling drowned in a deluge of content.

I suspect that’s the core appeal of all the influenc... See more

This recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations, which in the course of the past decade have taken over our digital platforms. Today’s automated social-media feeds deliver increasingly indistinguishable content now sometimes generated by artificial intelligence; i

... See more