One of the BBC' s most anticipated books for 2024 An i-D non-fiction book of 2024 A
Stylist non-fiction book of 2024 ' An essential book' i-D What happens when our
cultural and artistic lives are dictated to us by an algorithm? What does it mean when
shareability supersedes innovation? How can we make a choice when the options have been so
carefully arranged for us? From coffee shops to city grids to TikTok feeds and Netflix
homepages the world over algorithmic recommendations prescribe our experiences. This network
of mathematically determined choices - the ' Filterworld' - has taken over almost
unnoticed as we' ve grown accustomed to an insipid new normal. But to have our tastes
behaviours and emotions governed by computers calls the very notion of free will into
question. Internationally recognized journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka
journeys through this ever-tightening web woven by algorithms. He explores how online and
offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption. How the lowest common
denominator is promoted at the expense of the complex diverse or challenging. How users of
technology contend with data-driven equations that promise to anticipate their desires but
often get them wrong. How the FIlterworld is determining the very shape of culture itself.
Chayka skilfully and compellingly traces this creeping machine-guided curation that influences
not just what culture we consume but what culture is produced. In doing so he attempts to
answer to the most urgent question currently facing us: is personal freedom ever again possible
on the Internet? Filterworld is a fascinating history of the rise of the algorithm and an
important investigation into where it could take us next - if we let it.
