Slop and spam, bots and scams: Can personalized algorithms fix the internet?

From the super-spam Google search results loaded with videos instead of web pages to the “paid for by” advertisements heavy in social media feeds these days, it’s hard not to notice the internet morphing into … well, some call it slop (others use another four-letter word). Whatever your taste, or lack thereof, AI is sure to play a major, transformative role. Offsetting the massive and justified concerns are several palliative possibilities for the preservation of our humanity online — one of them in consideration is the so-called individual or customized algorithm.

This is, in essence, a filter on the internet or in parts of it, such as particular websites, whereby you, an AI bot, or another entity (perhaps the operator of certain sites and apps) uses the overlay to curate your feed.

As an example, you’re scrolling the X.com timeline and decide you actually do value, say, the political takes of your ideological enemy but have no interest at all in connecting with or understanding various factions within your own presumed ideology. In terms relative to the “discourse,” it’s sort of a nuanced position. An algorithm tailored to enhance your predilections may be an option. Doesn’t exactly sound like the “town hall of the internet,” much less the “global public square,” but it might keep users engaged, and it might be useful for certain types of searches, engagements, and analysis.

Even as the Trump administration works day and night to unravel decades of graft, fraud, and frankly traitorous activity at society’s many levels, what exactly do we want and need out of the internet so we can thrive?

Continuing with the X.com hypothetical, perhaps the programmers under Elon could, and this is the thrust of the issue, decide to allow for the application of various user-determined control parameters onto your feed, such that it weeds out what you want to ignore and gathers more of what you have determined you value. Seems straightforward, right? Why not roll it out and offer it as a subscriber add-on? Even if it’s not entirely customized, it’s getting close.

There are cost barriers and security considerations. Aren’t there always such barriers, though? Programming, maintaining, and monitoring such tailored algorithms and similar individualization is heavy on the compute. Compute requires energy, which requires money. The relative homogeneity of websites allows for economic, efficient computation — but doesn’t it also work to homogenize us, our desires, and perspectives?

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This seems to be the battleground we find on ourselves on now.

The other major obstacle from the point of view of the internet proprietor relates to the opportunity for scams that might arise if users are granted these tools of curation. The argument is that if individuals are granted or otherwise obtain (perhaps via AI) the technological tools to curate their own feeds more deeply than they do now, those same tools will open opportunities for scams of various sorts.

One such argument points to the use of AI-assisted algorithms deployed into a context like X.com with the objective of gathering intelligence, data, and so forth — to be leveraged later in some separate context? This happens already, as we all know, but evidently supercharging these efforts opens yet more vulnerability online. Or so the argument goes. So it’s hard to say with any certainty how effective or useful or desirable the option for individualized algorithms will be in the absolute aggregate. Does it matter? Well, at a spiritual level, maybe not. However, at immediate survival, social, and viably employable levels of concern, yes, the internet absolutely still matters a great deal. For most people, just walking away isn’t an option.

And so the question many people are asking, even as the Trump administration works day and night to unravel decades of graft, fraud, and frankly traitorous activity at society’s many levels, is what exactly do we want and need out of the internet so we can thrive? It’s going to be more than pure market logic. How can we wrangle this thing to serve everyday Americans, or even mankind, while we’re at it?

Let me offer two basic predictions. One, the internet will continue with the logic of homogenization, of monoculture, which appears to describe and define most of corporate culture, and as a result, the internet may likely stratify more than splinter. Individual algorithms will pass away as just another stab in the dark of cyberspace exploration. Two, the homogenization will nevertheless finally become unprofitable — at least to the point where, beyond pure market operations, some of the more enjoyable and human operations will open up. Perhaps individualized algorithms wind up functioning as an effective stopgap, a Band-Aid, until we can get bigger medicine — wisdom — involved.