The process designed to optimize for attracting our attention has done what it was designed to do: optimized for attracting our attention, at the cost of all other incentives.
The image of a throbbing, mutating, dark spiral is conjured in my mind. The more it is watched, the more it begins to grow into a twisted visage of the viewer as it attempts to recreate all of their desires and fears within itself. It is meaningless yet becomes all meaning.
It's time to let people choose their own algorithm and force upon the platforms a marketplace for algorithms.
There needs to be regulation so algorithms are turned off by DEFAULT for every user - with the option to turn on for those that want a dose of brainrot
Do you browse HN only with https://news.ycombinator.com/newest ? Or is the HN algorithm kosher in a way other algorithms aren't?
HN's algorithm is in fact kosher, because it's not personalized. On HN, arguing with people on topic X will not make you get shown even more articles on topic X to keep you engaged. Reddit-like platforms are similarly okay (you personalize your experience by subscribing) and short video platforms like Tiktok are the great evil.
Pointless. 95% would stick to the default
This is a case of psychological exploitation - in a free market of algorithms the current dominant flavor on platforms would win for the majority of people. As unpopular as it may be in this forum the real solution here is government regulation as we need to work as a society to protect our brains from these exploits.
> process designed to optimize for attracting our attention
namely: "social" media
this stuff always reminds me of There is no antimemetis division [0]
From Case Hate Red:
> With some minutes to kill, he checks the headlines on his phone. Yet again, something dreadful and new which he doesn't understand is going viral. Today's fad is, you paint a black vertical rectangle on the wall, or on a mirror, or over the top of a picture. And then you chant something. Wheeler can't quite pick out the words of the chant. They're in a language he's not familiar with. He's no singer, but he's performed pieces with lyrics in Latin, German, Greek, French… whereas this language has a bizarre manufactured sense to it, as if it were simply English with the vowels and consonants all switched around.
[0] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
That indeed, and The Entertainment or the samizdat from Infinite Jest. A film so entertaining to its viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than endless viewings of the film.
Back when people would read blog posts about the erosion of ownership in the face of intellectual property law, I used to blog about something similar...
Of course the MPAA is against copying, I would say -- the ideal situation for the MPAA would be if when you left the theater, they could just wipe your brain of the memory of the film you just watched. You just remember that you had a fun time with your friends and it was a good movie, but you don't remember any of what happened there. "but those are MY memories" -- no no no we didn't touch YOUR memories, we left your memories just fine -- we only removed a copy of OUR copyrighted content from the world, consistent with our terms of service for the theater. But if you want to experience it again, by all means, come back to watch it again.
"That sounds like it would stifle all cinematic innovation" -- no you don't understand! Our artists are suffering because they don't get the full amount of money they are due because of all of these unlicensed copies moving about the world in peoples' heads. When people are discussing how amazing that movie was, our artists deserve to have them in a controlled cafe attached to the theater where they can control that experience and fully profit off of it. Don't you get it? Bigger financial incentives, bigger payoffs for successful artists -- therefore more artists, and more cinematic innovation! When you play back these unlicensed copies in your "memory" and pirate our works, you're really just contributing to monoculture by not rewarding the people who made your favorite things.