The Shadow Side of AI Part 5: It's raining bullshit
Zen Gardens, Tibetan Temples and the aesthetics of YouTube
Our epoch is characterized by the seizure of the symbolic by industrial technology, where aesthetics has become both theatre and weapon in the economic war. This has resulted in a misery where conditioning substitutes for experience.
Bernard Stiegler - SYMBOLIC MISERY
Greetings!
A self-imposed hiatus left me adrift for some time, exiled from my musings and connections here on Substack. Real human bonds instead laid claim to my time and attention. Rightly so, of course. I just have to look up from my screen for a moment to recognize life and death happening around me continuously. It was inevitable that human drama would knock on my door sometime, no one is immune.
But even the inevitable takes us by surprise. The phone rang one morning and the sobbing young voice on the line informed me that his father, my friend had died. Mouth Cancer had been part of his life for just over a year and I had accompanied him to the doctors the whole time. At first just to provide emotional support, but more recently to consult directly with the doctors as aphasia was added to his growing list of symptoms. There is nothing like illness and death to sharpen your priorities. For a while, my thoughts on AI and tech just didn’t make the list.
But AI is of course important. Whether we like it or not we just can’t avoid it. In my last installment ‘Our minds in their hands’, I recounted how in the name of corporate profits the first generation of AI algorithms got us addicted to a diet of emotionally charged information that piqued our attention then polarized us by appealing to our base natures. Like junk food, the algorithms serve up a diet that is simultaneously attention grabbing and bad for our health. Some have thicker skins than others, but those who don’t suffer.
Even here on Substack there are many writers that generate a continuous picture of doom and gloom. Comment pages are often overrun with bickering and attempts at one-upmanship. A pathetic state of affairs really. In such a space it’s easy to feel helpless and nihilistic. I don’t really want to be part of that group of professional complainers out there churning out noise and creating moral panics. However self-righteous many feel, in real terms our impact is often quite negligible. So today, instead of all that, I would like to empower you all my dear readers, with a few simple pointers to make your online life more refined. As Gilles Deleuze once commented,
‘It is not a case of worrying or hoping for the best, but of finding new weapons.’
Before I get into the business of handing out weapons though, let's first pause and reflect on our individual circumstances. We are all unique and regard different things as important or sacred in our lives. When we discuss refinement we often refer to things like taste, style or aesthetics. Bernhard Stiegler in his book Symbolic Misery stated,
“I use the word aesthetics here in its widest sense, where aisthēsis means sensory perception, and where the question of aesthetics is, therefore, that of feeling and sensibility in general.”
If we adopt Stiegler’s meaning here, we can examine the scope of our aesthetic signature in the world. Perhaps it is limited to your personal appearance, such as how you dress yourself? Maybe it includes your car, your home or even your garden? All of these spheres evoke images and feelings in our mind. In fact, we often spend good money maintaining them. But what about the online spaces we inhabit and experience, how do they make us feel? How can we refine them?
If we look to traditional societies, a refined aesthetic often reflects an inspirational refuge away from the drudgery of everyday life. Nomadic farmers living in the Tibetan plateau enjoyed the backdrop of wide open spaces and vibrant blue skies in their day-to-day lives. For inspiration they created temples with a unique Tibetan aesthetic. It is common to find every inch of their temple walls covered with intricate murals depicting Tantric Buddhist imagery. Raised platforms surrounded by intricate silk brocades are home to statues of Buddhist Deities and other holy objects. Musky incense fills the space and horns and drums resound during ritual liturgies. Mentally, Tibetan Tantric practice involves the visualization of complex mandalas and deities in the minds of meditators. Tibetan nomads walking though the temple doors are transported to a powerful realm replete with magic and mystery in sharp contrast to the vast natural landscapes they normally inhabit.
In contrast, if we turn to overcrowded Japan, many are forced to navigate congested city life in their daily life. As an aesthetic refuge, Zen inspired temple gardens reflect an ideal of minimalism, simplicity and space. Mentally, Zen meditation does not fill the mind with complex visualizations like Tibetan practice prescribes, but instead focuses on the movement of the breath or the practice of ‘simply sitting’.
If we turn to our life in front of screens, I recently read that over 80% of all computer users chose an image depicting nature as their screen wallpaper. Perhaps, this is one of the only stylistic choices we make when plugged in. As Stiegler commented further,
“a huge proportion of the population is totally subjected to the aesthetic conditioning of marketing, now hegemonic for the vast majority of the world, and is, therefore, estranged from any experience of aesthetic investigation.”
We might feel this at times when we browse media platforms and are subject to algorithmic machinations. Even here on Substack. So much of our experience online is served up by recommendation engines that personalize and feed us content based on our user profiles, browsing histories and locations. If we browse anonymously we are usually subject to the lowest common denominator of content on offer. You all know what I mean, the popular click bait. The algorithms at times deliver the very symbolic misery Stiegler had in mind, but with mathematical precision. Grim times indeed.
Whilst we might not be able to escape these algorithms completely, a little bit of understanding how they work can make them work for us, instead of the other way around as is most often the case. To make my case I will use YouTube as an example, the only Social Media I use regularly apart from Substack. For many, YouTube functions as a smorgasbord of offerings, reflecting our eclectic interests and at times impulsive viewing history. We might visit YouTube to kill time or boredom. Window shopping, as the algorithm tirelessly refreshes an evanescent feed of enticements. Ensnared by the algorithm’s calculus, our minds can be led into rabbit holes and aesthetic spaces that we would never consciously choose to visit let alone wish to venture into. Even the most astute amongst us are vulnerable to the algorithm’s control. But we don’t have to be regular users. We can do better. There is another way.
Can you imagine a world where we could create distinct aesthetic spaces on YouTube where the algorithm offers you bespoke and refined offerings that match your desire or feelings at any particular time? Instead of the eclectic smorgasbord normally on offer, you could choose to enter a space that is the online equivalent of a Tibetan Temple or a Zen Garden. Imagine a space that has been chosen and tended by you personally, instead of being drawn into a congested space subject to the whims and wishes of the algorithm. You might not want to see politics, culture wars, and entertainment all the time. Sometimes you might just want to be uplifted or inspired, or maybe listen to some good music or explore your obsession with some esoteric topic. The feed unfortunately mashes everything together and traversing it dissipates our time, attention and patience. A process that can’t help but churn out a regular dose of Stiegler’s symbolic misery.
Well, in a very real sense the algorithm already provides a perfect litmus test for the desires in our minds. That’s how it works. But the problem is, I don’t prefer everything, everywhere, all at once. I have several friends who are in some ways quite different and in other ways very similar. Bringing them together however just never seems to work out. So I segregate my time with them. I keep them apart. In the name of harmony, it just works out better that way. There lies the key for YouTube.
If we segregate our interests on YouTube we can create unique spaces to visit. You may subscribe to several YouTube channels and may have noticed that some creators have more than one channel to publish diverse content. What most users don’t realize is that channels are not just for the creators out there, normal viewers can create channels too and switch between them to see different content based on the viewing history stored whilst on them. Each channel you create maintains a unique history of views, likes and subscriptions. Creating a channel empowers you to explore and refine a distinct aesthetic space on YouTube.
So if for example I am interested in classical music, I could create Boodsy’s Classical Channel, and only search for and watch classical music on that channel. The algorithm will slowly learn from this behavior and start to show only classical music there. Of course to keep this space refined, just like with a Zen garden, you will need to weed, rake and water the channel. You need to apply a certain amount of discipline. To assist the process you create distinct channels for your different interests. You might want to create one channel for news and current affairs, one for entertainment, one for tech and one for music. In fact you can create channels for whatever rabbit hole you want to explore or research. The more you refine the channel, the more you’ll start to discover hidden treasure as more interesting and stimulating material will start to appear in your feed. You will slowly move away from the torrent of clickbait into a refined aesthetic space. Life changing stuff really. Are you in?
How do I create channels?
You need to do this from a web browser, you can’t do it from the YouTube app on your mobile device. First log into Google on the browser using your YouTube account credentials. You will probably have a single Google account across all Google products.
Then click the link below:
This will take you to the following page where you choose a channel name and then will have options to change branding such as the channel icon for a more personal experience.
How do I change channels?
Once you set up your new channel you can switch to it any time from YouTube on both a web browser or on your YouTube mobile app by clicking on your channel icon and choosing Switch Account. On a browser, you find that icon at the top right corner, as shown here:
On the YouTube app your channel icon is found at the bottom of the screen and is labeled with the word ‘You’ as shown below:
Clicking switch account presents you with all the accounts you manage. Select the one you want and hey presto you’ve changed channel.
How do I refine my channel?
When I was a child I remember walking through department stores with my mother. When we went through the china and glass departments without fail my mother would look at me and whisper, ‘Don’t touch anything’. That’s the best policy for refining your YouTube channels. Whatever you click on in your channel will be remembered by YouTube’s algorithms and will tune your profile and feeds. Only touch or search for what you want to see more of.
We can’t unfortunately always discern what’s good or bad in our feed and sometimes give new content a try. If after watching it you might find it not suitable at all. Don’t worry you can simply click on your channel icon and scroll down to viewing history. Find the offending video in your viewing history and click on the 3 dot menu next to it and choose ‘Remove from watch history’.
To refine your channel feed you can remove any unsuitable content directly by choosing the 3 dot menu icon next to a video title and choose either ‘Not Interested’ or ‘Don’t recommend channel’. This is equivalent to weeding your Zen Garden. At first you might have to weed quite often before good results start to show up. Don’t scroll infinitely doing this or you might start to get cranky. Just do a few rows of content then refresh the feed by clicking on the ‘Home’ icon. From time to time Google tweaks YouTube’s algorithms so different types of content shows up which will need more ‘weeding’ to refine.
Each channel maintains an independent list of channels you subscribe to. Only therefore subscribe to channels relevant to your channel’s topic or aesthetic. Try not to mix things up.
How do I reboot my channel?
What happens if my channel gets messed up? How do I clean the slate and start again? If you click on your channel icon and click ‘View all’ on your History section, look for the 3 dots menu to its right and click on it. You will discover here the options to manage and clear down your watch history. If you want to start from the beginning also unsubscribe from those channels that are no longer relevant to your interests.
It’s a discipline
I’ve been using channels in this way on YouTube for a few years. Yes it takes a bit of discipline to maintain, but I am still pleasantly surprised when I find great content with often very little views that have just been routinely ignored or censored by the algorithm. Experiment with it. Create a channel and jump down a rabbit hole.
Whenever I want a break and switch to YouTube I pause first and think about the content I want to see at that time. Having several channels with different types of content to choose from is a refined luxury that keeps me relatively free from the more egregious aspects of these recommendation algorithms and puts me firmly in the driving seat. Let me know in the comments how this works for you.
Perhaps this sounds like too much work? No problem. We can’t all hack the algorithm. Sit back, relax, click the Flowerettes song below and enjoy the bullshit!
Great information. You’re correct about being careful though. One wrong click on YouTube can send your feed into a morass of garbage very quickly. Thanks.
I hack the algoritm leaving my children using my smartphone and view YouTube videos