Plus people apparently don’t know what „algorithm“ means. Sorting by average rating is an algorithm. Filtering by genre is an algorithm. Anything that takes an input (a database of books), performs a discrete set of steps and produces an output (an ordered list of books) is an algorithm. Even if it’s not performed by a computer but yourself standing in front of your bookshelf.

+1, I get a lot of very good recommendations from chatgpt.

Book recommendations from people are fine, but I find that about half of them are just echoes of whatever’s popular in that particular forum.

r/printsf gives very good recommendations most of the time but you’d better be ready to read Blindsight.

It sounds good on paper, but after a decade of having Netflix and Spotify recommending stuff to me that I “like” but leaves me spiritually pigeonholed, I’ve really come around to appreciating the value of “organically” encountering media that is more varied and challenging.

To give an example: when a friend recomends a book to me, even if it’s not my “taste” the experience becomes much more rewarding (and I have a friend to talk about it with!). Being recommended media by a software program is impersonal and honestly it gets kinda lonely.

What about an algorithm so that you get relevant book recommendations from people? Would that count?

I think people are tired of their data training AI models while using for a service.