Welcome to The Lost Debata Show for Politically Ecclectics. I'm Robbie Gupta. And today I talk to

Kyle Cheka, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of a new book called Filterworld,

which is all about how algorithms are flattening our culture. He and I really get into it.

This is kind of a continuation of the Nicholas Carr conversation that I had last week. And I would say that

Kyle's thesis is a little bit more pointed. It's kind of a next step thesis from Carr's skepticism

of the sort of digital world that we live in now, where Kyle is really particularly focused on

algorithms, but also how the questions of taste, curation, choice

are in some ways made for us in a world where we have algorithms and big tech companies,

basically pushing out the options that we appear to choose from every day, whether you're on

Spotify, Netflix, you're on Amazon purchasing a book.

And he goes even further saying even our physical spaces, like the coffee shops and restaurants

that we go to, how those are shaped by our algorithms.

It is a provocative thesis.

And Kyle was a really good sport.

I gave them a hard time about certain elements of the thesis. And then the second half, we really get to the nitty-gritty of how do you live your

life in a world where algorithms have such prominence. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation.

Let's jump right in.

Well, Kyle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. Your thesis is that algorithms are

flattening the world. Let's start with the algorithm part of this. What is an algorithm?

In a literal sense, an algorithm is just any kind of equation. So any math equation, any formula

is essentially an algorithm. But I think in the context

right now, what we're often talking about are recommendation algorithms. So that's the kind of

...