By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026Then she busts out a beautiful, *perfect* little statistics aphorism: "Personalisation under a standard loss function is regression to the collective mean with extra steps." 32/ 19217
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026That is to say, "regression to the mean" (the tendency of varied things to become more standardized) cannot be avoided with the standard personalization algorithm. 33/ 1513
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/08/2026That algorithm is going to play it safe, showing you things that are broadly palatable, and because your choices are constrained to the average, you will choose average things. 34/ 1544
