> All of these efforts to know listeners ignore music as an interactive art form. These Spotify features suggest that music is entirely about your own pleasure and ease and not something that’s meant to be engaged with, sought out, and even criticized. The user-focused promotion of AI doubles down on these habits. Listeners are supposed to be delighted that a robot knows every little thing about them, while never challenging them to expand or change.
I'm not a Spotify user, but this is something that has annoyed me about YouTube Music and recommendation algorithms more generally. The people who design these products will go on about revealed preferences and how what users say they want is not what they "really" want based on behavior, but what if who I am is not who I'd rather be? What I want is for the algorithm to push me towards being "the kind of person" who enjoys more varied and challenging music, films, art, etc than I currently do. But everything seems designed to keep you in this little local well of familiarity. To what end? Why not let me tweak that?
