All watched over by algorithms of loving grace.
Read the original on ethanmarcotte.com ↗Lord, but I’m tired of recommendation engines. Tired in my bones.
I watched a video of a musician I listened to obsessively in high school, but not much since then. He was playing an old favorite song in a massive stadium, presumably part of some concert recording. After I finished the video, my feed was overtaken by other songs of his. Also stadium performances from other bands I didn’t care about. Also game day highlights from professional American football teams, presumably because stadium. And with all love and respect to those who do, I cannot adequately express to you the extent to which I do not watch sports.
I heard a song playing in a coffeeshop, and dug the hell out of it. I asked the cashier what it was, pulled it up on my phone, and spent the day listening to the album. Naturally, the service started recommending their other albums to me, as well as deluxe versions of the album I’d just listened to, as well as albums by other artists that this musician had guested on.
Oh, and then there was the time that, because I am a human being attempting to sleep during this hellscape of a timeline, my music streaming service realized I’d been listening to a lot of Brown noise and nature sounds while I slept. From that point on, my recommendations were awash with albums like Ocean Sounds To Desperately Chase REM Sleep By, Oops All Loon Calls, and Now That’s What I Call Meditation Chimes!
Billion dollar companies, each of them propped up on the shoulders of terrible little gremlins obsessed with the arithmetic mean. “If you watched this, you must want more of it,” they wheedle. “If you listened to this, you must want more of it,” they hiss.
Look. There is nothing I edit more aggressively than my YouTube viewing history. I’m approaching the point where I select music services based on whether or not I can block artists. I still don’t understand why I can’t mute entire genres when I’m browsing a video streaming service. All this math, all this time, all this work, all this capital, all of it dedicated to delivering the most predictable, boring, average thing. We’ll take all the data you’ve given us, and we’ll press it down into the content equivalent of beige, flavorless paste.
And suddenly, the “artificial intelligence” industry makes a lot more sense.
This has been “All watched over by algorithms of loving grace.” a post from Ethan’s journal.