Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms • Hacker News Board

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#41

Post by pradn » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

I don't see a significant difference between algorithmic and old-guard mass-media taste-makers. Your personality reflects the profile used to target you with ads for objects like Eames chairs and MCM consoles. Your same personality pushes you to choose Architecture Review, which contains objects of the same style. Fashion magazines get paid by advertisers to showcase products of a certain style and cache even in their non-ad sections. The thin layer of a Vogue editor doesn't shield you from market forces buying your taste and making you feel like the sort of person who chooses a certain style. The homogenizing tendency of mass-media is present in either circumstance.

Most people aren't underground reading fashion zines or choosing to follow edgy fashion designers from Serbia. The dominant culture perpetuates itself either way.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#42

Post by mar77i » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

al2o3cr wrote: post #33

Shorter this article: "I liked it better when my taste was dictated by who paid the most to advertising agencies, not algorithms" 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, ...which have been filtered by publishers deciding which manuscripts to publish, a past consumer deciding which book to buy, AND a…

The way you're presenting the issue it's making the whole question about taste unsolveable, really. Knowing what is great in ones own measure can still be learned, though, and please trust a stranger on the internet on that account for all the obvious reasons.

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 ;-)

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#43

Post by tomc1985 » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

al2o3cr wrote: post #33

Shorter this article: "I liked it better when my taste was dictated by who paid the most to advertising agencies, not algorithms" 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, ...which have been filtered by publishers deciding which manuscripts to publish, a past consumer deciding which book to buy, AND a…

The difference is that those old ways allowed for greater personal agency. Perusing old books requires selection and even a bit of curation on part of the buyer, whereas algorithmic recommendations make deciding fairly mindless.

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.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#44

Post by bitwize » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

firasd wrote: post #9

Really interesting article. Weird thing is that in the social media era, humans ourselves seem behave in algorithmic ways. My Twitter feed is full of Beyonce worship every few months even though I've been mostly-indifferent to her music for 20 years. But when people come together like a hive and retweet how they excited they are about some shared interest, there doesn't need to be a recommendation engine pushing a sp…

When I was in Japan in 2011, nearly every girl I talked to had the same favorite singer -- Lady Gaga. I noticed that Japanese pop culture diversifies in time rather than space: something reaches critical mass and then sweeps the entire nation like cherry blossom season, only to be swept away by the next big thing weeks later. Also trending at that time were the anime One Piece and the Disney character Stitch (who had just gotten his own anime which was the canon sequel to Lilo and Stitch and takes place in Okinawa rather than Hawaii). Previous trends are traceable even after they've left Japan: in the late 1980s, Nickelodeon suddenly picked up several shows featuring koalas. What had happened was, a few years earlier, an Australian zoo donated a breeding pair of koalas to a Japanese zoo, and that triggered "koala mania" in Japan with koala-themed anime becoming popular. A similar mania involving hamsters struck in the early 2000s.

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.)

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#45

Post by mozumder » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

al2o3cr wrote: post #33

Shorter this article: "I liked it better when my taste was dictated by who paid the most to advertising agencies, not algorithms" 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, ...which have been filtered by publishers deciding which manuscripts to publish, a past consumer deciding which book to buy, AND a…

...which have been filtered by publishers deciding which manuscripts to publish, a past consumer deciding which book to buy, AND a used bookstore deciding which books to purchase for resale

..which is filtered much like the used books

  ... and then later filtered by YOU from the thousands of items in the store.

Why would you want to perform the role of the professional editor anyways? They already went through millions of items to get you those last few thousands of items to you.

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?

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#46

Post by FussyZeus » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #26

> No one is original anymore, not even you. 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 c…

> Gently, I would suggest that we are neither original nor should we find our identity in material goods.

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.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#47

Post by acdha » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

Definitely – services like Spotify or Apple Music make it easy to listen to the same top n tracks as everyone else but the lack of an effective training mechanism makes it really hard to break out of the recommendation loop and the cumbersome UI discourages attempting to find things yourself because everything is built on the assumption that the recommendation engine is worth using.

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.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#48

Post by kristianc » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #43

al2o3cr wrote: post #33

Shorter this article: "I liked it better when my taste was dictated by who paid the most to advertising agencies, not algorithms" 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, ...which have been filtered by publishers deciding which manuscripts to publish, a past consumer deciding which book to buy, AND a…

The difference is that those old ways allowed for greater personal agency. Perusing old books requires selection and even a bit of curation on part of the buyer, whereas algorithmic recommendations make deciding fairly mindless. 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)…

> Pandora and Spotify still can't build or execute a playlist like a good DJ can.

Spotify's playlists are at least in part human curated, so not sure how you got to that conclusion.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#49

Post by mozumder » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

dehugger wrote: post #25

I cant speak for all mediums, but Spotify's "Related Artists" feature has grown my personal taste in music more then anything else ever has. The ability to easily find similar artists to the one I am currently enjoying drastically lowered the barrier to entry for me and music.

I've always found playlists or indie music stations with actual DJs worked better than Spotify's algorithmic selections.

Same with movie/TV show recommendations.

Re: Taste is increasingly dictated by algorithms

#50

Post by mar77i » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

When it comes to these things, I remember when I was younger, how "metal" always was an interesting study object. I would have to decide myself which of it was "artsy" and which of it was just "for the masses", and the further back you go, the more you find that it's not mutually exclusive. E.g. we're not going to argue over the Beatles, Pink Floyd or Iron Maiden.

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.