Recommendation engines = Danger !!!

Recommendation engines are the software that suggests what we should watch or read or listen to next. They help us deal with the millions of choices the Web offers. But can a computer really have good taste ? It has no preconceptions ; it works entirely on the basis of the audience's reaction. They're designed to give us what they think we want, based on what we and other people like us have wanted in the past. As a result, they create a blockbuster culture in witch the same runaway hits get recommended over and over again. It's the backlash against the « long tail », the idea that shopping online is all about near infinite selection and cultural diversity. How far will it go ? Will we eventually surf on a Web that display only blogs that conform to our political leanings ? A social network in which we see only people of our race and religion ? Our horizons, cultural and social, would narrow to a cosy, contended, claustrophobic little dot of total personalisation. Lev Grossman Time Magazine, June 7, 2010 (p. 44-48) See Constellation = personnalisation