“BookWyrm is a social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next.”
“BookWyrm is a social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next.”
I mean, if an algorithm can recommend me books I might enjoy based on things I’ve previously read, that’s not a bad thing?
Algorithms aren’t always bad.
Plus people apparently don’t know what „algorithm“ means. Sorting by average rating is an algorithm. Filtering by genre is an algorithm. Anything that takes an input (a database of books), performs a discrete set of steps and produces an output (an ordered list of books) is an algorithm. Even if it’s not performed by a computer but yourself standing in front of your bookshelf.
This is true, but colloquially when people say “I dislike algorithms,” we are referring to any system that automatically sorts or elicits information, apart from responding to user input. I like having the ability to sort and filter things manually, but I dislike unsolicited recommendations and things of that nature. I think most people know the technical meaning of the word.
I do not think most people know about the computer science definition of algorithm involving discrete steps. For average people I feel like your definiton of “any system that automatically sorts or elecits information, apart from responding to user input” is the only one known.
You may be right, I’m not really sure. And in this case, this is still what people are referring to colloquially.
+1, I get a lot of very good recommendations from chatgpt.
Book recommendations from people are fine, but I find that about half of them are just echoes of whatever’s popular in that particular forum.
r/printsf gives very good recommendations most of the time but you’d better be ready to read Blindsight.
To each their own, but I’ve been using bookwyrm for a few months now, and I like that it doesn’t use an algorithm because I have yet to receive a suitable recommendation from one. It’s a much cleaner, refreshing experience.
It sounds good on paper, but after a decade of having Netflix and Spotify recommending stuff to me that I “like” but leaves me spiritually pigeonholed, I’ve really come around to appreciating the value of “organically” encountering media that is more varied and challenging.
To give an example: when a friend recomends a book to me, even if it’s not my “taste” the experience becomes much more rewarding (and I have a friend to talk about it with!). Being recommended media by a software program is impersonal and honestly it gets kinda lonely.
What about an algorithm so that you get relevant book recommendations from people? Would that count?
I think people are tired of their data training AI models while using for a service.