You're Worried About the Wrong Algorithms

A new essay in the Atlantic

Phew, this one was a long time coming. If you’ve spent more than, like, an hour with me over the last year, you’ll have heard me ramble like a madman about the current algorithm discourse. My basic take is that algorithms are not categorically different from the ways that capital have influence culture since the Medicis paid Donatello and Botticelli to sculpt and paint so the Florentine power brokers could stunt on people in Vienna and Venice. I’m not arguing that being supported by people that might have ulterior motives cheapens the quality of the art, but it does speak to the tight dynamic between money and culture that has existed for a long time. We saw the same thing happen when the music label system started forming mass musical tastes through payola or when the gallery scene started creating overnight successes based on representation rather than pure aesthetics. What I’m saying is that you can draw a straight line from the Pietá to Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ and no I won’t be answering any questions about that.

I make as much of an argument in my first essay for The Atlantic which you can read here. I enjoyed working on this piece quite a lot, not least because I was able to talk about what algorithmic anxiety is really about—which is the insecure position of the artist in a world dominated by financial insecurity and inequality. Culture is not somehow worse in 2024 than 1984 or 1964.—and what does being ‘worse’ or ‘boring’ even mean when it' comes to culture?—but we are in a moment where artists cannot simply be artists. That’s why you see the instantaneous commercialization of everything. There are so few avenues to survival in the arts today that whatever your craft is needs to be maximized for revenue, which is why platforms mediated by algorithms have become both an escape hatch and a source of deep dread for people.

Hope you’ll give it a read.