What Moneyball-for-Everything Has Done to American Culture

The algorithms that shape our cultural landscape are not inherently malicious. They are indifferent. Their purpose is not to destroy art but to optimize engagement—a goal that, while profitable, is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of artistic innovation.

For Millennials, the first generation to grow up with these technologies, the chal... See more

The playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar described our “click-bait consciousness,” trained to interact with anything in the feed designed to be triggering. “The worship of algorithms is mutilating creative industries,” the television writer Cord Jefferson complained. “Culture is no longer made. It is simply curated from existing culture, refined, an

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The world is one big panopticon, and we don’t fully understand the implications of building a planetary marketplace of attention in which everything we do has an audience. Our work, our opinions, our milestones, and our subtle preferences are routinely submitted for public approval online. Maybe this makes culture more imitative. If you want to pro... See more