SOS – Save our Serendipity! Part III
Dr. Miriam Meckel
Co-founder, Executive Chairwoman @ ada | Professor @ University of St. Gallen | AI, Communication
This is the third and last part of a series about “Serendipity”. You can find the first part here, for part two click here.
Part 3:
We should not stop personalization on the internet
but rather shape it
It would be na?ve to think that we could reverse or even stop personalization on the internet. This is not the issue here. In many respects, personalized offerings do have advantages. Therefore, it makes little sense to curse them in a culture-pessimist, technophobe polemic. But increasing personalization has consequences that might be worth reconsidering. There are three approaches to culture criticism that are of importance:
We need a public discourse!
It is time to have an in-depth discussion about what is happening. If even most politicians have no clue what this debate is about and i are not able to lead the debate, we have to rely on a grass-roots movement. The core-questions will be: (a) How can algorithm-based personalization strategies be revealed, so that every user can decide for themselves, whether or not he or she wants to expose him- or herself to them;
(b) Could there be a choice between personalized and non-personalized search and communication on the internet – one that enables individuals to exclude themselves voluntarily from the total calculation of their personality? And finally
(c) How could there be more elements of serendipity built into the algorithms that calculate our information environment?
We need uncertainty and we need doubts.An algorithm knows no falsifiability of our conceptions of reality. It neither doubts nor errs. This alters our world view and our idea of humans paradigmatically. Everything is precisely how it is calculated to be. Life in such a positivist world will change us. Whoever refuses to live in this digital panopticon will have to insist on doubts and uncertainty as a prerequisite of freedom.
We need media edited and produced by humans. Only human beings can counterbalance algorithmically calculated services like ?Demand Media“, which deliver precisely what we thought of looking for by aggregating Google search terms and producing news on demand – and nothing more. What these services are neglecting is the fact that we also need what we haven’t considered looking for yet, the surprising piece of information that sparks an ?uncalculated“ interest in us.
A world entirely calculated by algorithms is not only a dull and boring one. It is also the anti-social draft of a perfectly individualized commercial society. Victor Hugo wrote in ?Les Miserables“: ?Great coincidences are the law. The order of things cannot do without them.“ Today, coincidences are not the law anymore – not even the small ones. But we cannot do without these coincidences, without serendipity – not even on the internet. By saving serendipity, we are saving our very souls, saving what distinguishes us humans from machines.
So: A little less algorithmic prediction, a little more action, please. Let’s save our serendipity!
HORAGE & IP-strategy
8 年Easiest is to not search through Google, but the reality will kick in and people will quickly understand that the performance of the search results is very much dependent on historic knowledge of people's search behavior. Sorry to demystify the dreams of getting best search for free for no input from us users;-) Google is stupid still and only could advance and improve our search returns because they accumulate data form our history. Machines are still machines. If people want to know about us, they have better methods to screen us humans;-)
Owner, MAG3 Notary Services (Retired from the IT profession)
8 年I think any discussion of "Internet personalization" has to include the ability of an individual to "opt out" of any such personalization for privacy reasons. Internet personalization I think will still require a cultural evolution in which people are willing to accept a loss of privacy (via the collection of data in order to build those personal profiles) for the convenience of what personalization may bring them. I for one am not willing to accept any such privacy loss, and I oppose any efforts to have my data, my search results, my "clicks" collected for such purposes. I don't need my Internet experience to be "personalized." I much rather do my searches, see *all* the available results (without any filtering) and make an informed choice. I have to admit it's still a little creepy to me to have things pop up based on previous searches (i.e. "Because you searched that... we recommend this!"). I wan't the ability to say, "No thanks... I wan't my searches to be private."
Creating spaces that tell stories @ doesinger.com
8 年Referring to Heideggers notion on technology - wouldn't it be true to consider ourselves as the ?resource“ of the “digital enframing“? - and if so, what would that mean to serendipity? “... The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather the river is dammed up into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station.“
Group Chief Technology Officer at Haymarket Media Group
8 年A really enjoyable and thought prevoking series of articles on why it is important to preserve serendipity on the internet