I discovered this really fun website last night. It seems I spend a worrying amount of my time looking for new books to read. It's just something I need - I read before bed, and I like to read over breakfast, as well. Which also means I get through a fair amount of 'em, and am always looking for stuff I might like.
Last night, searching random book recommendations on the web, I hit upon this brilliant little website called Which Book. Basically, it offers you several categories (e.g. "Happy/Sad", "Funny/Serious", Predictable/Unpredictable", etc.), of which you only get to select four. And then, it gives you book recommendations.
At first, I was skeptical, taking it for some cutesy, ineffective novelty, but I went and played with it just for fun. And interestingly enough, the suggestions it came up with were actually books I'd want to read. Not all, but I came away with several options. Titles of books I'd never even heard before, and I like to think of myself as up on these things, you know?
The website also offers a short, personal note on the story, undertones, character development, things like that. And it displays book covers. Now, I've always been a fan of choosing books based on cover, as well. I know the saying, yet covers do tell you a lot about a book - the mood, the writing style, things like that. And I've often gotten lucky judging by cover. So if you're an avid reader, I highly recommend checking this website out. Maybe you find something you like.
But it got me thinking...
If it's truly so easy to approximate one's likes and dislikes through algorithms, how long until a few clicks can be trusted to determine other, more important choices, like a job, a place to live, a life partner?
Like on this website, you'd get to choose from several categories, only getting to keep the ones you deem most important. And that would be that - you'd just follow the algorithms, and you'd be happy.
After all, isn't it all this abundance of choice that's making us all so depressed? Always second-guessing if we've the right job, the right house, the right lover? So why not eliminate that?
Seems to me that now, we justify even our worst choices based on their seeming right at the time. But if we let the computer choose, or at least, narrow it down for us, we don't have that excuse no more. I didn't choose you because I wanted you, I chose you because you seemed compatible, and surely compatible must mean right... but does it?
In theory, I can see the benefits of letting an algorithm choose for you. Yet inside me, something's revolting at the mere thought - might it be humanity? And what will happen to that humanity when the ease of letting a computer choose for us overrides our need for individuality?
I worry that the individuality won't win, sabotaged, as ever, by the terror of making the wrong choice. But isn't our ability to choose wrong what makes us human, to begin with?
