Sunday, August 08, 2010

"nonhuman tastemakers reverse-engineering the soul"

Lev Grossman is a great writer.  His new article in TIME is about Pandora and "recommendation engines". (those "If you like this, you may like..." referrals, called "collaborative-filtering: software)... but so much more.

Any article which stretches us to think about how nonhuman tastemakers are "reverse-engineering the soul" and serve as  a prosthesis to help us "navigate the epidemic of choice"; let alone asks us to reflect on who is shaping who... is way relevant.

It also unveils why Facebook "algorithmically curated" and Google's "advising us on what we should know" returns have been acting a bit differently lately..

...and ends with a prophetic call to avid a world where our  "sharp edges sanded off".

Here it is..

2 comments:

Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!