Filterworld

How Algorithms Flattened Culture

De: Kyle Chayka

Narrado por: Kaleo Griffith

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

"[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture…[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live."—Ezra Klein

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.” Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.

important book

important book about the effects of algorithm on culture...a must read. Should be taught im schools

Excellent argument

I loved the idea behind this book, and agree with much of the supposition of the author. Though it did seem a bit nostalgic and pretentious. Overall good to ponder upon, but the author did meander a bit much.

Understanding the Cookie Cutter Culture.

Brilliant analysis about the impact of algorithms on culture. This is a great narrative analysis about how algorithms came into modern culture and how it is impacting the choices we make as consumers and how we may lose our human connection if left unchecked.

Filterworld - A timely study of the reliance on AI algorithms over human curation of culture

This is a persuasive look at the pervasive role of AI algorithms in contemporary human affairs and how this trend “flattens” our cultural landscape by diminishing the role of human intervention. Now that human curation has ceded preeminence to algorithmic preference-setting, our choices tend to be weighted toward the least common denominator with results and suggestions being less unique and sometimes, even divergent from our inner tastes. This is especially apparent in the algorithmic curation of our musical selections.

On the contrary side, Chayka’s analysis sometimes dulls its keen edge through occasional prolixity and a tendency towards unnecessary repetition of certain terms that underpin his thesis (“flattening of culture”, “algorithmic fill-the-blank”). And while the author liberally shares his personal tastes in literature and music, almost in an attempt to revive curation-by-personal-suggestion, the practice verges on overbearing oversharing (Sorry, anime is just not my thing!)

Still, having seen first hand the transition from a “golden age” of human music curation, for instance, from late ‘50s to Top 40 radio, Motown, Stax, Scepter, Atlantic and so many other record label streams, British Invasion, classic and album-oriented rock (AOR) when it was simply rock, etc., I find it paradoxical that musical culture was also “flattened” in a sense, meaning a commonly shared point of reference for several generations was “baked into” the culture at large for the musically open, and, even as those of us lived it, it was a vital, magical time, with masterpieces seemingly coming from every direction. All was well, at least musically, until the social tumult and the human, creative losses and crises catalyzing in the late ‘60s gradually led to the almost inevitable fragmentation of culture on multiple modes and levels.

Ultimately, I agree with Chayka that algorithmic hegemony and AI infiltration of culture threatens the muse we thought was innately human, although perhaps it’s been a while since we had anything new, personal and exciting to express. Renaissance anyone, or has that boat forever sailed away?

Interesting, but dense, in a good way

A new topic for me, and I was able to learn a lot from the audiobook!

Important book for mondern times

If you want to learn about the stickiness of modern-day populism, the decay of democracy (potentially reaching T-Doom), and the internal mechanics of social media, this is a must-read.

The facts

I loved how honest it was everyone is a slave to the algorithm but it’s a good and bad thing we have to learn to coexist with it.

Important Book for Our Times

Somewhat dry, but I think vital analysis of how social media platforms and their algorithms are changing (negatively) how we consume and create art, but also discusses other societal effects. If you are sick of SM, listen to this book and you’ll get a better understanding as to why, and what you can do about it.

Ironic that the narrator sounded like an AI. So robotic and unengaged from the material. Would have been better if read by the author.

Blowing my mind

This book reframed my understanding of how I interact online and I’ll be thinking of it and referring to it for many months to come!

Excellent

This book is excellent! Very thought provoking and one I will come back to. Strongly recommend.