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I'm a programmer and have to say my job is writing algorithms, so... I love them! However that was not the case when I read the article above. Not to mention when I watched the talk on the video. What Ali Pariser is saying in the video is that there are plenty of algorithms that take under account a variety of parameters when we search (google) the web and read our newsfeeds on facebook. The experiment with two people googling the same keyword and taking different results is stunning!
So here come's the question. Yes, we'd love to have algorithms filter content and suggest to us the best of it. But what happens when these algorithms work and you don't know it? Even worse, what happens when these filters are applied without giving us any control on how they work? Do we end up with information junk food? Do we end up with the information that some people want us to see and ignore the rest of it? What about different point of views? Can we reach them easily? Do the algorithms allow us to think and understand different points of views? Do we end up in our own little information bubble or we connect we the rest of the world?
Think about it!
