“A book does not watch us reading it; it cannot morph itself, page by page, to suit our tastes, or deliver to us only depictions of people we already know and among whom we feel comfortable. It cannot note our reactions and then skew its stories to confirm our worldview or reinforce our prejudices. A book does not know when we pick it up and put it down; it cannot nudge us into the belief that we must look at it first thing upon waking and last thing at night, and though it may prove addictive, it will never know exactly how or why. Only the algorithms can do all this—and so much more.”
A denouncement of algorithm disguised in a “defense of fiction.”
| Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction | by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/zadie-smith-in-defense-of-fiction/