Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms
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Article opens with the quote, but that's the essence of a vast amount of art through the ages: only the thinnest bit of art is truly original, and looking to get rid of the non-original bits generates absurd junk.
I would argue that the cult of original and the cult of individualism-via-consumerism is largely an 1800s ideology filtered through post-war marketing. "only by consuming a unique set can you truly be yourself" is a fascinating and materialist way of looking at the world.
Gently, I would suggest that we are neither original nor should we find our identity in material goods.
Elsewhere in this thread the word "serendipity" is used - this is a true observation in my opinion. The internet removes serendipity, replacing it with "you may also like". While libraries have librarians making selections, they also allow for a free-range wandering over the stacks, rather than keeping you in one specific area of "you may also like". That is something worth thinking about, and, I think, solvable.
This in spades. We spend so much time arguing the merits of our choice in cell phones, computers, living styles, organizations, cars, etc. seemingly forgetting that we are supposed to choose things, things aren't suppose to choose us.
The Mad Man marketing people salivate every time an iPhone versus Android argument sparks, they spent decades trying to get consumers to be loyal enough to get into fistfights over brands of products.
It also removes the social context around the production of taste. Taste, in addition to being a set of personal preferences, is also a conscious and unconscious way of both signaling social status and creating empathy between people. This is largely absent in algorithm-facilitated media consumption. Facebook/spotify/whatever else is an intercessor between you and your group of friends and peers, removing the patterns of social interactions surrounding our formation of likes and dislikes and replacing them with an anonymized distillation of what other people enjoy. I don't think that's a good thing. There's a huge chunk of human interaction that's being elided here.
You mean like the "Random" links on Wikipedia and Reddit?
libraries are curated, organized, and structured to allow browsing.
random does nothing of the above.
meaning is a polyspectral space, and libraries are a lower-dimensional reduction of that to allow perusal through multiple bands of meaning. while the result may be arbitrary, it's within the bounds of the arc in the meaning-space. In addition, the curation of books means that arrant nonsense is culled (hello r/ooer), and highly niche bits of meaning are stored in appropriate places - usually residing in academic journals housed in university libraries.
Libraries.... are not precisely tiny. Depends on the library. And a shocking amount of internet statements have a shockingly small entropy.....
I’d easily put this in the top three reasons I stay in this job.
I consider clicking the random link on Reddit analogous to firing a gun into a bookstore, or randomly flipping channels on a TV: no discernment whatsoever, and very shallow, very often completely worthless results. 99% of the time I click random on Reddit, it comes up with complete garbage, IMHO, to the point I don't use it anymore. Meanwhile, the best subreddits I've come across have been "curated" by recommendations.
I wouldn't be so gentle; I definitely think we are harmed by finding identity in material goods. It's destructive.
As for originality, I would modify the goal: don't try to be original. Instead, aim to stretch your mind to think things it hasn't thought before. If you get so far that you do think something original, great! If you don't, at least you've expanded your horizons.
> While libraries have librarians making selections, they also allow for a free-range wandering over the stacks, rather than keeping you in one specific area of "you may also like". That is something worth thinking about, and, I think, solvable.
And I'm glad to see we've come to roughly the same conclusion, even if that makes us "not original." ;-)
While I agree with the first part, identity is tied to society, unless we are to become reclusive hermits. I would suggest that while better, even people who look back to a pre-consumerist lifestyle, are engaging in lifestyle (and thus identity) unless it's a completely unattached choice (again reclusive hermit).
It reminds me of my High School anti-establishment, anti-in-crowd anti-jocks who in being all things-anti were a definable entity in itself with a prescribed set of attitudes and behavior -and music specially.
Ah, but the reclusive hermit is a response to the society - an active rejection - such that the hermit is one of the lifestyles most consumed with society's affects!
Similarly the "hipster" has a finely refined vane on popular culture. Calling a hermit/hipster disconnected from society It's like calling an antihistamine disconnected from pollen.
They don't care if they are admired, rejected, remembered or forgotten.
Sadly even when they just want to be forgotten, Journalists looking for a story to tell hunt them down, sometimes[1]. Some people just want to be outside of it all.
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/homeles...
I am suggesting that a, how do you say, Stoic? Zen? Tao? attitude about material goods is something to be desired.
They are there, they are useful, they have a social context, but your identity is more than goods.
(I distinctly remember how overnight everyone looooovveeed Amelie when it went up)
Sadly it's a lot harder to find new (or new to me) films serendipitously. With the closing of rental shops, the last bastion seems to be the DVD section at local libraries.
I can see how people, especially on a dating site, would feel pressured to mention something highbrow, but the social pressure itself isn’t coming from Netflix.
There are places. I wouldn't condone copyright violations but the various forums used by filesharers are the modern incarnation of the film rental shelf. People publish collections based on their own tastes regardless of copyrights, contracts or other limitations. These are movie lovers and will point you to films that you would never normally consider. It is then on you to hunt down these recommendations through legal means.
I have discovered many a great European scifi series through filesharing forums. Getting hold of a legal copy is often difficult, but I'd rather spend effort to obtain a great thing than wade through the sea of junk 'recommended' by netflix. Currently I'm trying to find a copy of "The City and The City", which appeared on a pirate feed a few weeks ago and looks like a great series.
Once a dating profile has been created it is RARELY edited in anything but photos.
No one was going back to put Amelie into their favorite movies. They just were filling out the BEAST LIST of requirements and personality tests, and quickly filled in that field with a non embarrassing movie they had seen recently.
I think this years most favorite movie was probably "GET OUT". But that shit will be a footnote except for film buffs in 3 or 4.
I think Stumbleupon was quite clever at what it did and I'm disappointed more services haven't picked up on the "Give us a broad category and pull the lever to make the slot machine spit out something you've never seen before" approach to content. But it does give me hope that algorithms can provide the experience of serendipity if the people designing the application make that choice.
Netflix seems to have a borderline religious obsession with keeping the UI "simple",
A "random film" button would be welcome IMHO. (Or random within categories)
I suspect that's not Netflix's recommendations, but just having it added to Netflix. Anything new tends to get a lot of views, as people actively go through the "New" category.
Also, Mubi is a great resource for films, curated by themes, topics and users. Unfortunately their streamign/licensing model of showing a small selection of films for a limited time isn't very useful to me. Nevertheless the content is great: https://mubi.com
I can't tell if you think all/most the people who claimed they liked Amelie are dishonestly reporting they liked it because it is important for them to like something other people like?
Most people aren't underground reading fashion zines or choosing to follow edgy fashion designers from Serbia. The dominant culture perpetuates itself either way.
But at the same time, there's a lot of opportunities for increased individualism. You can buy clothes and furniture from far more places. You can much more exhaustively search restaurants. You have way more options in what you watch and listen to. Even the existence of "mainstream hipster" taste in movies is a change compared to just "maintstream" being a single thing.
So is personal taste really less present than it used to be? I don't think so, I think the domains just shifted around a bit.
[1] https://sci-hub.tw/https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=295918...
So, the Beyonce fever becomes pitched in large part because of algorithms suggesting that content. I don't think each of those tweets would have happened independently.
The critique is that we're being fed so many suggestions that we don't have room to find out for ourselves what we like or want to talk about. Instead many times we're simply responding to and consuming the recommended content.
So there are people at the wheel, but the majority is along for the ride.
Japanese people are individuals, but Japanese society favors the collective, and the person who goes along to get along. Accordingly, people are rewarded for adding their voices to the throngs supporting something that is already popular or favored by the elite, much less so for cultivating individual tastes, which are pushed to the sidelines (think back-alley Akihabara with its tsundere maid cafés and other businesses of peculiar interest).
In the USA we put high value on "being an individual like everyone else". Social media has simply amplified the "like everyone else" bit by making it easy to keep track of what everyone else is doing. Something that's been ongoing in Japan for decades if not centuries. (The koseki can be considered a form of paper-and-ink social media.)
That's not diversity, it's simply pop culture.
Same with movie/TV show recommendations.
The question raised in my mind is this: where is the tipping point at which the answers / predictions in that algorithm become stale or shift rapidly and require an answer that is orthogonal to previews answers (!) but still "correct". This tipping point seems to be what taste is about to some degree. ..so now we need an algorithm to predict the tipping point; its algorithms all the way down.
One year, I decided to only watch movies filmed in, or about, the state where I live. One year I caught up on famous horror movies I hadn't seen. None of these ideas was "suggested" to me directly. Nor, do they really seem related to each other. For me, at least, it seems a long way off before computer algorithms are affecting the way my brain chooses something it likes or wants to try.
Algorithms don't seem to be able to solve this problem yet. Certainly not those used at Netflix.
It's just you. There's always been a mainstream and an underground. Now the underground is much larger and more diverse and arguably the mainstream is a bit better (due to said diversity).
Source: I lived through the 90s and was basically forced by Clear Channel to listen to Ozzy Osbourne 24/7 on every station on the dial.
Similarly the mainstream is not so big any more. Back in 1977 half the UK, 28 million people, watched the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show live. That was our peak mainstream, a shared set of jokes everyone could be expected to know. Now peak programmes reach about half that audience.
People don't remember how much that sucked.
Taking the dating example from the article - it speaks less about intimacy and more about people's expectation. Does matching means a sure shot chance of intimacy? Not really. Algo thinks that two particular people might go well together. A role previously played by a mutual friend.
Similarly, there are tons of people who want to wear better clothes but given lack of knowledge turn to YT or a personal stylist. So, the app might help them make better choices. Surely, people who are stylish might never use the app.
That said, technology companies do have a habit of overselling features sending media into a tizzy.
You'd spend more time watching movies that registered IMDb users didn't rate highly. That's only "bad movies" if you enjoy films for the same reasons that registered IMDb users give them high scores on IMDb. There are plenty of films that don't score highly on there that millions of people who are a bit less invested in the film industry absolutely love. Maybe you would too.
I listen to various music these days, but I waste "comparably little" time in algorithmic maybe land. As opposed to the constant consumption pressure some people expose themselves with ... whatever the hell that camera does between watching women change.
Since they’re widely used, there’s no room for local color or taste the way you used to have local reviewers, independent store clerks, etc. Everyone in the country gets the same thing.
http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/powerlaw_w...
But we are supposed to trust the NN in my life? I think not!
In all seriousness, consider the bit listed under "how to resist the algorithm" (quotes indented):
I might only read books I stumble across in used bookstores,
only watch TV shows on local channels,
only buy vinyl,
only write letters,
forsake social media for print newspapers,
wear only found vintage.
These processes aren't new - ever wonder why so many pop songs are under 5 minutes (hint: it's not because that's an artistic decision)? In a lot of ways, digital technology demolishes the old barriers; for instance, releasing music doesn't take a significant up-front investment in pressing physical copies & distributing them to stores, so it's easier than ever for that content to get out. Out is key there, IMO - just because it's released doesn't mean anybody ever hears it. Seems like "the algorithm" might actually help in that situation, however: maybe the music only has 200 people that want it, making an old-school marketing push totally impractical.
You write as if the filters you lament are bad. I think, given the overabundance of mischaracterized crap that seems to clutter up 'algorithmically' filtered exchanges (YouTube, Netflix, etc) I will take human curation and filtration any day of the week, biases and all.
Pandora and Spotify still can't build or execute a playlist like a good DJ can. Netflix's recommendations still miss the mark way more than talking about movies/shows with friends.
Spotify's playlists are at least in part human curated, so not sure how you got to that conclusion.
I believe his point is that the algorithms don't generate playlists or dj mixes with the same polish as a professional human and I'm inclined to agree. That said, I do think their recommendation engine produces decent results, but I don't think the composition of the list is something it focuses on. Rather its just a list of unrelated tracks it thinks you'd be inclined to enjoy on their own.
You can similarly ruin a good, curated playlist by hitting shuffle.
How important can i be, though, there's always that laborous swag thing called "responsibilities". Ask the kids how sexy that one is... Or better, ask a so-called Hipster ;-)
..which is filtered much like the used books
... and then later filtered by YOU from the thousands of items in the store.
Editing is a full-time job, why should consumers do that for themselves?
And, if you can't find products from a selection of professionally edited products, then your sense of taste isn't going to work with other people.
We need to trust editors and human filters more, not less, because they know whats better for you than you know yourself, and certainly better than algorithms.
Algorithms have always been terrible at making taste. This is why a real radio station with a human DJ is always better then the algorithmic radio services. Every time I try to listen to an algorithmic station, I have to turn it off, since they're so bad, even when given my existing playlists.
And can you imagine how bad a fashion magazine would be if it were algorithmically determined?