Recommendation algorithms as therapist

What are the machines trying to tell you?

A few times recently Spotify has suggested songs that genuinely offend me. How, for example, could Spotify think I would like U2? I’ve learned to live with the fact that I apparently now like Dire Straits. But U2? I always considered myself far too cool. More of an early Fleetwood Mac kind of guy.

Then I thought about it further. Maybe Spotify’s algorith…