Today I logged in to Amazon to buy some books, and I got my personal recommendations from Amazon. It says "Hello Jin. We have Books Recommeded for you - Darkness visible : A memoir of madness, Unholy ghost : Writers on depression. "
OMG. I've bought only two books from Amazon, and they happen to be related to drinking problem and depression. ( my best friend is a psychiatrist and she wrote a book on depression. If your best friend published a book, it's an obligation to read that book, huh? and the other was recommended by her.)
Anyhow, based on my purchase history, Amazon assumes that I have serious interest in all the dark side of human. I know that Amazon keeps all the customer's past buys stored in their database and present the books they may like. It doesn't even require high level intelligence on the algorithmic side.
I just got into thinking, What if my frequently visited news website shows me the particular stories based on my past reading habits. What if I am a person who enjoys reading gossips about celebrities while barely touches on politics or international news. Will I end up getting only celebrities' gossip? Will it feel like a vicious circle?
A little spooky idea.
Jin, this is really interesting. Can you get saddled with a profile on the Web that you find impossible to get rid of? Scary indeed.
ReplyDeleteThere's someone who has written a bit on this - Cass Sunstein - he called it Republic 2.0 and it's about how we can selectively decide how we participate in democracy thanks to the choices we make online.
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