At War With Algorithms
By Henry P. Raleigh
ART TIMES Online October 2010
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I’m still smarting about missing out on Netflix’s million dollar contest. I have previously reported on this and it’s all the fault of those devil algorithms. Ironically enough, I was given a six-month introductory gift to Netflix. It didn’t take me long to discover how those damn algorithms hope to lure me into their way of thinking. I caught on right off the bat with my very first order— Eric Roemer’s, “Claire’s Knee”. I am fond of Roemer’s films and am easily drawn in by his quiet editing and the long, literate dialogues over small moral tensions. The algorithms missed by a mile judging from the list of supposedly similar films they figured I would go for. I imagine their decision-making process, all electronic mind you, must have unfolded something like this:
Algorithm #1: “My note here says “Claire’s Knee” is about a French guy who is attracted by a girl’s knee but he doesn’t do anything about it.”
Algorithm #2: “Any juicy sex stuff?”
Algorithm #1: “Nothing, nada.”
Algorithm #3: “ Sounds like a Meg Ryan film to me. Maybe Jennifer Aniston.”
Algorithm #2: “Right, didn’t “French Kiss” have Kevin Klein playing a Frenchman?”
Algorithm # 3: “And she has pretty knees, too.”
Algorithm #1: “Right, so let’s feed him a bunch of Meg Ryan and Jennifer Aniston flicks.”
You see how this insensitive process works. You see what a mess these algorithms can make of things. I for one intend to keep them off-balance. My next order will be Almordovar’s “Law of Desire”, a film about a porn movie director and transvestites. Let those algorithms try tracking me after that. And I’ve got some other beauties that should drive them right up the wall — a passel of surrealist films no one this side of the Atlantic has ever heard of by directors whose last names end in ‘czyk’ and ‘sky’. Take THAT algorithms!