The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety

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Internet algorithms are profit-maximizing mechanisms that want to spoon-feed me whatever I’m most likely to click on. This is a win-win, symbiotic relationship—until it’s not. When an algorithm is jibing with your Higher Mind, it’s your friend. When it’s luring in your Primitive Mind against your Higher Mind’s will, the relationship is parasitic.

Tim Urban • What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

Should 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

Algorithms were once believed to untether us from the masses and offer paths for personalization. But “For You” is not about pushing the limits of our artistic palates, but a device to serve us what the platform wants us to be satisfied with.