Screaming at the Cloud, Algorithms, and AI: Helpful or Lost Cause?
October 2, 2025
![Dino 5 18 25_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dino-5-18-25_thumb3-1.gif "Dino 5 18 25_thumb[3]")
Written by an unteachable dinobaby. Live with it.
One of my team sent me a link to a write up called “We Traded Blogs for Black Boxes. Now We’re Paying for It.” The essay is interesting because it [a] states, to a dinobaby-type of person, the obvious and [b] evidences what I would characterize as authenticity.
The main idea is the good, old Internet is gone. The culprits are algorithms, the quest for clicks, and the loss of a mechanism to reach people who share an interest. Keep in mind that I am summarizing my view of the original essay. The cited document includes nuances that I have ignored.
The reason I found the essay interesting is that it includes a concept I had not seen applied to the current world of online and a “fix” to the problem. I am not sure I agree with the essay’s suggestions, but the ideas warrant comment.
The first is the idea of “context collapse.” I don’t want too many YouTube philosophy or big idea ideas. I do like the big chunks of classical music, however. Context collapse is a nifty way of saying, “Yo, you are bowling alone.” The displacement of hanging out with people has given way to mobile phone social media interactions.
The write up says:
algorithmic media platforms bring out (usually) negative reactions from unrelated audiences.
The essay does not talk about echo chambers of messaging, but I get the idea. When people have no idea about a topic, there is no shared context. The comments are fragmented and driven by emotion. I will appropriate this bound phrase.
The second point is the fix. The write up urges the reader to use open source software. Now this is an idea much loved by some big thinkers. From my point of view, a poisoned open source software can disseminate malware or cause some other “harm.” I am somewhat cautious when it comes to open source, but I don’t think the model works. Think ransomware, phishing, and back doors.
I like the essay. Without that link from my team member to me, I would have been unaware of the essay. The problem is that no service indexes deeply across a wide scope of content objects. Without finding tools, information is ineffectual. Does any organization index and make findable content like this “We Traded Blogs for Black Boxes”? Nope. None has not and none will.
That’s the ball being dropped by national libraries and not profit organizations.
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2025
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