algorithmic anxiety

The flattening of intent across algorithms has created a new competitive landscape. The musician isn’t competing for attention/fandom between others in their genre. An artist being forced to be an influencer before they are an artist is not a “I think we are good” software environment. Far from it. They are competing against a pornstar on a... See more

Who are you really writing for?

Elan: How do you think about success when publishing a piece? If you have the traditional KPIs of number of page views or how far it spreads, what does success look like for The Pudding?

Matt: Great question. It’s definitely not hard metrics for us. Everyone has their own barometer of success, just as they have their own barometer of quality.

For... See more

In the post-hipster era, you listened to what Spotify told you to listen to. If you read a book, it was because the precise pattern of blobby pastel-coloured shapes on its cover contained coded instructions to TikTok’s algorithm that sent it zooming to the top of your feed. Your tastes and preferences were decided for you by vast crystalline... See more

It’s getting ever harder to distinguish humans from bots, not just because bots are becoming more humanlike, but also because humans are becoming more botlike.

As knowledge of human psychology evolves, algorithms become better at shaping human behavior.

as a human, my tastes, interests and attention are shaped by what is put in front of me. I’ve seen my 3-year old granddaughter, on her way to do one thing, decide she wants to do something else, simply because the button for it appeared in her vision cone. I know I’m not so different. I want to stop being constantly bombarded by the click-me... See more