Guided by AIgo-rithms

Guided by AIgo-rithms

Artist:ZHAO WEN ZHANG, MA YANCHU, GROVER, GE ZIFEI, YAN MAN

Curated by HUANG YAOZI, RICHO, CHEUNG NGAIHUEN, ORICHI HON, LU XIANGLONG, YULI

Introduction

Curiosity drives kids to explore the world. It’s an inborn quality that helps people move from confusion to understanding. It sparks a strong desire to explore the unknown and pushes us to discover and understand the world around us. In the information age, it’s essential to protect this curiosity and stay open-minded. We need to think for ourselves and not just passively absorb information. This way, we can form independent views and adapt to a changing world.

In this era of rapid technological advancement and information overload, curiosity has changed significantly. Social media and precise algorithms have altered how we interact with the world, pulling our curiosity into the grip of capital. The once simple and pure childhood curiosity is now caught in the algorithmic net, becoming a manipulated "puppet."

In this capital-driven digital realm, our attention and curiosity are quantified, fueling data capitalism. Viral social media trends, seemingly driven by public curiosity, are often guided or manipulated by algorithms. Capital leverages technology to transform our innate exploratory desires into tools of digital consumerism. Our clicks, pauses, and shares inadvertently enrich data capital while eroding and distorting our curiosity.

With our curiosity controlled and shaped, we must consider how to regain autonomy over our thinking. Amid algorithmically constructed "epistemic bubbles," we long to unlock the enduring desire to explore within us. Let curiosity return to its natural state, motivating us to actively explore the world and understand ourselves and society, rather than merely serving as tools for external control and consumption.

This effort represents both an individual spiritual rescue and a societal cognitive reshaping. We must dismantle the algorithm-set cognitive framework and escape fragmented feeds and precise recommendations. By re-examining overlooked details and our unique life paths, let curiosity serve as a lighthouse guiding us toward deeper understanding. It can illuminate corners obscured by algorithms, helping us find cognitive direction and a spiritual home in our complex world, allowing us to rediscover curiosity's true light as we explore broader horizons and seek essential human values.