love in the age of algorithm

The vibes are off, but they’re off fundamentally because they focus only on feelings and emotional connections that have already existed. They don’t provide or imagine pathways to new futures; they allow only for an understanding of what feels good or bad based on experiences that have already happened, things that have already been seen.

In other w... See more

The significance of the shift from “generalized media” to “personalized media” cannot be overstated. Our digital worlds will soon be tailored to our interests in unfathomable ways. On the one hand, personalized experiences are likely to make marketing more effective. Brands have a precious opportunity to make us all feel “known” in our every intera... See more

I want to see more tools and fewer operated machines - we should be embracing our humanity instead of blindly improving efficiency. And that involves using our new AI technology in more deft ways than generating more content for humans to evaluate. I believe the real game changers are going to have very little to do with plain content generation. L

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Six months ago, I looked up how to humanely euthanize a sick fish on Reddit. I found a method and now my fish is dead.

Since then, Reddit has sent an email every week with novel ways to kill fish of all sizes.

The algorithm must think I’m a fish mass murderer. It won’t stop.

For all the hype that surrounds them, neural networks can’t reflect or explain anything deeper about cultural or societal phenomena any more than sharing a favorite character from The Office can predict long-term compatibility with a Tinder match. These systems can only instrumentalize taste; they turn any expression of self into a reductive data p... See more

The trouble with the internet, Mr. Williams says, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it tries to supply them.

The old Greek legends tell of Narcissus, a youth so handsome he became besotted by his own reflection. Unable to look away from his image in the surface of the waters, he fell still forever, and was transformed by the gods into a flower. Similarly, as influencers glimpse their idealized online personas reflected back at them on screens, they too ar... See more