Sublime

use AI to give users agency instead of stealing their agency.

1. On the internet, we are always living in the past.

The mechanics of this permanent state of retrofuturism are simple: if you have access to detailed data about the behaviour of people, editorial control over what information people receive (as social or search recommendation engines), and the means to nudge people using designed affordances then ... See more

Instead of being a passive consumer of the web, I begin to feel as though the internet is molding itself around my intentions, transforming from a distraction machine into a precision instrument for creativity.

Social media algorithms identify our politics and then shepherd us into a hermetically sealed bubble, framing our worldview through a window of rage and extremism.

“The idea that we get our information as citizens through algorithms determined by the world’s largest advertising company is my definition of dystopia.”

To accomplish this goal, the “proud extroversion” of the early Web soon gave way to a much more homogenized experience: hundred-and-forty-character text boxes, uniformly sized photos accompanied by short captions, Like buttons, retweet counts, and, ultimately, a shift away from chronological time lines and profile pages and toward statistically opt... See more