Recommendation algorithms are not as infallible as technology companies have made them out to be. Companies like Netflix, HBO, Apple, and Facebook are back to leveraging human touch. The reintroduction of human curation by these giants appear to be an acknowledgement of the fact that handing the curation job to people still has value.
Even with algorithmic recommendations, technology companies depended on humans to train their machine learning models and moderate questionable content. However, the current push for humans to handle the curation has taken on greater urgency as these companies are facing a backlash over the negative effects of their products.
Therefore, introducing humans to the mix is an obvious way to compensate for the shortcomings of the algorithms and their inability to make inferences such as stories that would polarize readers. This outcome is because algorithms do not actually understand the meaning of its source material. Another reason, acknowledged by experts, is that it is going to be a long time before machine learning can understand the meaning of a statement.
However, the problem with human curation now is that the technology companies are tending to use them as an either-or proposition. The reason tech companies embraced recommendation algorithms in the first place is because they allow for infinite personalization and the processing of vast amounts of data at little cost. Even in its current avatar, human curation does not scale that way.
So, technology companies reviving people-centric curation could just be a stopgap affair until algorithms improve. Yet, it is still possible to imagine a model in which human and algorithmic curators coexist and even help one another. The other approach would be for the technology companies to invest more in human curation on its own merits, whether it scales or not.
The fact remains that humans curation cannot offer the kind of granular recommendations that an algorithm can provide, nor would they be nearly as cheap to produce. Nevertheless, human curation would provide a level of trust, accountability, and personal connection that cannot be obtained from an algorithm. Amid the current backlash, those might be precious outcomes for technology companies.
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