Have Algorithms Destroyed Personal Taste?
While the magazine fashion editor may periodically use their ability to pick out and promote a previously unheard voice, the algorithmic feed never will; it can only iterate on established engagement.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
There are two forces forming our tastes. As I described previously, the first is our independent pursuit of what we individually enjoy, while the second is our awareness of what it appears that most other people like, the dominant mainstream. The two may move in opposite directions, but it’s often easier to follow the latter, particularly when the
... See moreKyle Chayka • Filterworld
identity. “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier,” Bourdieu wrote. No wonder that we worry about what to like, and sometimes find it simpler to export that responsibility to machines.
Kyle Chayka • Filterworld
... See moreShould the human fashion editor tell you what to like or should it be the algorithmic machine, in the form of the Amazon bookstore, Spotify feed, or Netflix home page? That is the central dilemma of culture in Filterworld.
The former option is mercurial and driven by elite gatekeepers, a powerful group built up over a century of modern cultural ind
Cultural works aren’t hedonic appliances dispensing experiences with greater and greater efficiency for audiences to passively consume. Creators and audiences are always engaged in an active process of outmaneuvering each other. Yes, I want more of what I already like, but I also want to be surprised. New patterns are discovered, repeated, become t... See more