Severin Matusek

Technologist tended to view their world as somewhat insulated, despite having mass impact on culture and society at large. But over the past decade, at minimum, there’s been far more collisions of scenes. Both production oriented and deeply intellectual.

In my new book, I came up with the word “Filterworld” to describe our interwoven environment of algorithms. These equations have become inescapable, influencing the vast majority of what we consume online — and thus what kinds of culture we consume, period. I use “filter” because algorithmic recommendations are ultimately filters that sort content.... See more

Our information system has split into an endless number of micro communities, from group chats to online fandoms, all learning about news and major events through increasingly bizarre digital formats.

When I polled a group of friends, one person heard the news in the comment section of a bird's Instagram account, another learned of it in a Discord... See more

If art has a duty, it is to render visible the conditions in the world which are ubiquitous but otherwise invisible. You see where I’m going here. If you want to make an artwork depicting a person, you would do well to use oil paint, a technology that, like human flesh, absorbs and refracts light, and can be pulled taut across the canvas or else... See more

All that it means to be a brand is to have a disposition and an attitude toward the world, which people trust you to deliver on. And to build a brand is to follow your intuition, and find your disposition.

I’ve noticed a new trend among the chattering classes of online AI guy hypebeast. Their current stage of grief over AGI not arriving or having very little to show in the way of ROI for their LLMs has shifted to blaming the users. To them, it’s not that AI is not working as they intended; it’s the people who are too stupid to understand how to use... See more