Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
I stand for the Constitution, for due process, and for community that takes care of each other.
Of course we are shaped by the choices presented to us!
At the beginning of August, Lauren Leek published Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same. Optimizing algorithms (especially those without forced exploration) smooth away variance and regress to means and modes.
This is Cory Doctorow’s “late stage capitalism”—all the businesses look the same (because they are). It’s shaping language, driving a collapse in the stories we tell. It’s the predictable result of human–choice combinations, where the “choice” side is algorithmically optimized.
These tools—demographic analysis for launching new franchises, music and show recommendations, ad placement optimization—are not just tools.
Remember, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”, and it’s not just LLMs that do this. Practically every optimizing system we’ve built in the last several decades wants to smooth out variance.
I don’t want to be smoothed out.
Fortunately Leek argues we can make a policy choice to fix this: forced exploration helps the multi-armed bandit problem, although it’s not clear to me how to legislate such forced alternatives. Still, breaking up monopolies would help!