Can We Resist the Age of the Algorithm?

This algorithmic repetition isn’t just a fashion trend; it’s the prevailing spirit across multiple cultural domains. What Mull observes about clothes, the critic Ted Gioia has been analyzing in music, where the Spotify era delivers what’s already tested and popular while the opportunities for new artists diminish. Instead of entering a process of d... See more

resisting the rule of the algorithm takes energy and creativity and courage, and the risk for our culture is that our technological skill and our cultural exhaustion are working together, defending decadence and closing off escape.

bad cultural and institutional incentives can deaden creativity as surely as Netflix’s algorithms. A flood of research dollars and prescriptions going in the wrong direction, because everyone wants to imitate everyone else, is the scientific equivalent of everybody making the same dress because that seems to be what the consumer wants — no literal ... See more