Jonathan Cohn: The Burden of Choice

Jonathan Cohn discusses his book The Burden of Choice: Recommendations, Subversion, and Algorithmic Culture with Chris Richardson. Cohn is an assistant professor of digital cultures and head of the digital humanities program at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on digital culture and history, critical algorithmic studies, film and media, postfeminist and postracial discourses…and television. With Dr. Jennifer Porst, he is co-editing Very Special Episodes: Event Television and Social Change (Rutgers, forthcoming) on the history of how the television industry has confronted traumatic events and cultural change. In the meantime, he is thinking a lot about what differences might exist between algorithmic and AI culture, and the experiences of incoherence endemic to our current moment. In an effort to make our relationship with AI more collaborative, ethical and egalitarian, he is also creating a program to help humanities scholars co-write and research with AI.