Don't always agree with me!
09/07/25 10:23
Why is my AI telling me what I want to hear?
I was chatting (odd choice of words I know but that's what it felt like) with "my" AI about music and it recommended two composers to me… oddly, two composers that I already listen to and my AI knew that because of an earlier interaction. I asked it if it was recommending those composers because it thought they were aligned with my interests and tastes OR because it knew I already listened to them… it was the latter. Which is disturbing to me - I DON'T want an AI telling me what it thinks I want to hear; that's worse than telling me nothing at all. I did a bit of digging and as you might have guessed there is a very active conversation going on about this issue. It's complicated I know… but if we keep getting pushed towards what the machine thinks we'd like, then how to we get exposed to new material? How do we start to think we might in fact be wrong about something?
I was chatting (odd choice of words I know but that's what it felt like) with "my" AI about music and it recommended two composers to me… oddly, two composers that I already listen to and my AI knew that because of an earlier interaction. I asked it if it was recommending those composers because it thought they were aligned with my interests and tastes OR because it knew I already listened to them… it was the latter. Which is disturbing to me - I DON'T want an AI telling me what it thinks I want to hear; that's worse than telling me nothing at all. I did a bit of digging and as you might have guessed there is a very active conversation going on about this issue. It's complicated I know… but if we keep getting pushed towards what the machine thinks we'd like, then how to we get exposed to new material? How do we start to think we might in fact be wrong about something?