“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” – Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back
In December 2021, I published an article about a day in the life of a Google algorithm. At the time, the search terms generating the most hits were “porn” with 4.16 billion and “Covid-19” at 3.75 billion. Today, with Covid lockdowns over, porn has slipped to 3.9 billion while the celebrity virus produces 9.9 billion results, a 264% increase.
“Kyle Rittenhouse” had already dropped from over 100 million hits the day after his trial verdict to less than 60 million. I averred that he would fade to algorithmic irrelevance within a year. Today, he generates 2.3 million results.
What does this fun-house mirror effect mean beyond diversion or geeky technical analysis?
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