I prefer “rare” to “well-done” — in steak, and in life.
Algorithms tend to optimize us toward well-being as “well-done”: predictable, consistent, uniformly cooked.
Safe, measurable, repeatable.
But human experience is closer to “rare”:
uneven, risky, asymmetric, and still alive.
The parts that matter most are often the ones that don’t fit cleanly into metrics.
If everything becomes optimized, nothing remains interesting.
And more importantly, we risk replacing well-being with the monitoring of well-being.
When a life is constantly optimized, scored, nudged, and corrected,
it gradually stops being a life that is actually experienced.
this feels incomplete without mentioning why everything is trying to keep our attention: paid digital advertisement. remove the incentive for the slopfest and “the algorithm” becomes far less of a problem (see HackerNews)
Just saying paid digital advertisement feels incomplete without mentioning why digital advertisement exists: most of the public would refuse to pay for services they take for granted such as email services, social media, etc at a level enough that companies would not feel compelled to sell out to third party advertisers. The struggles of Medium exemplify this very well. Ads are like the processed meat of our internet diet.
> With the AI slop being promoted on the major social media platform’s algorithm, I believe we will go back to following real humans. Back to followers, where we decide who we want to see.
This is a nice thought but I think it's wrong. If TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts have proven anything, it's that people don't want to decide they want to consume. It's cynical but it's what the data has shown time and again works for these platforms. Passive consumption is easier for the user and companies know it keeps us online longer.
When you ask people, they will say they want to see who they follow but their behaviour, incentivised by companies, says otherwise.
It is funny that people on Hackernews are (acting as if they were) against algorithmic feeds. This very site is one of the trailblazers that found out how much people prefer algorithmic feeds to chronological ones.
I prefer “rare” to “well-done” — in steak, and in life.
Algorithms tend to optimize us toward well-being as “well-done”: predictable, consistent, uniformly cooked. Safe, measurable, repeatable.
But human experience is closer to “rare”: uneven, risky, asymmetric, and still alive. The parts that matter most are often the ones that don’t fit cleanly into metrics.
If everything becomes optimized, nothing remains interesting. And more importantly, we risk replacing well-being with the monitoring of well-being.
When a life is constantly optimized, scored, nudged, and corrected, it gradually stops being a life that is actually experienced.
this feels incomplete without mentioning why everything is trying to keep our attention: paid digital advertisement. remove the incentive for the slopfest and “the algorithm” becomes far less of a problem (see HackerNews)
Just saying paid digital advertisement feels incomplete without mentioning why digital advertisement exists: most of the public would refuse to pay for services they take for granted such as email services, social media, etc at a level enough that companies would not feel compelled to sell out to third party advertisers. The struggles of Medium exemplify this very well. Ads are like the processed meat of our internet diet.
No. It has been proven by now that even if the public DOES pay, the advertising offers another channel of revenue, which executives loathe to ignore.
> With the AI slop being promoted on the major social media platform’s algorithm, I believe we will go back to following real humans. Back to followers, where we decide who we want to see.
This is a nice thought but I think it's wrong. If TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts have proven anything, it's that people don't want to decide they want to consume. It's cynical but it's what the data has shown time and again works for these platforms. Passive consumption is easier for the user and companies know it keeps us online longer.
When you ask people, they will say they want to see who they follow but their behaviour, incentivised by companies, says otherwise.
It is funny that people on Hackernews are (acting as if they were) against algorithmic feeds. This very site is one of the trailblazers that found out how much people prefer algorithmic feeds to chronological ones.
I think you'll find that people who are against algo-feeds are against that being the only choice.
Personally speaking I think the issue is personalized algorithmic feeds.
I want the algorithm to analyze spammers' behavior and filter them out for everyone. Not analyzing my behaviors to filter content for me.
<< It's cynical but
But is it cynical if it is accurate.