Sorry for the brief interruption in service. I will try to do better going forward! “Algorithm fatigue” Last week, I read The Feel of Algorithms, a recent book by Minna Ruckerstein about “algorithmic culture” — a useful all-purpose term for the range of automated systems, predictive analyses, and data-creation protocols being introduced across society. It offers an empirical investigation (in the form of interviews with a few dozen Finns) not of how algorithms technically work but of what living with them feels like, regardless of whether those feelings pertain to accurate assessments of technological capabilities. The aim is to get at how algorithmic culture has been able to become entrenched despite its manifest flaws, inequities, and indignities. How do algorithms come to seem like ordinary infrastructure and not a mode of oppression? As Ruckerstein puts it, how do they come to “define a comfortable life, rather than present an exogenous threat”?
Good to have you back, Rob. Great post!