Collaborative Filtering and Personal Identity: A Conversation on the Artificial-Intelligences of Streaming Platforms, 2020.
Collaborative Filtering is an algorithm application which predicts the tastes and desires of consumers. Often presented as “Recommended for you” and “Discover weekly” on streaming platforms— collaborative filtering is a highly utilized tool streaming platforms use to dictate their consumer’s aesthetic engagements. This highly effective technology provides social theory and philosophy with a situation of ambiguity due to its fast-paced public delivery and covert methods. To help accurately diagnose the motivations of an A.I metric-driven Western entertainment industry, this paper researches and analyzes some of the hidden infrastructures of streaming platforms' use of collaborative filtering. This paper hopes to introduce some concepts in Critical Theory in order to analyze how these types of algorithms of decision making affect personal identity.