ESSAY
The struggle to curate and preserve in the age of algorithmic chaos
Conjecture: Humankind has lost control of its material legacy. We are unable to sort, discard, conserve or curate our own story.
How can we expect future generations to make sense of our age when we can’t do that now, when we’re living in it?
The way we present ourselves and experience the world through the lenses of social media, blogs and other online platforms is increasingly disorienting. The information we encounter is filtered, curated and manipulated by algorithms, producing an online ecosystem where what matters is not dictated by human deliberation or desire but by the inscrutable whims of machines.
Our digital environments reflect a chaotic blend of fleeting moments, short-lived trends and an overwhelming flood of data that complicates the identification of what is truly significant. As artificial intelligence (AI) penetrates deeper into our daily lives, the challenge of sorting, preserving and curating the vast sea of information becomes ever more pressing. With even the creators of these technologies often unable to fully explain their workings, we are at a crossroads, where our ability to control our collective material legacy seems to be slipping from our grasp.
The algorithmic abyss
Social media, blogs, and other forms of digital communication represent one of the most significant cultural transformations of the modern era. Platforms such as X (better known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have given everyone a voice, democratising content creation on a scale previously unimaginable. But the sheer volume of this content is staggering. A commonly quoted statistic is that, globally, users generate around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. The source of this figure and its age are hard to determine, so it may be one of those numbers that people just accept and repeat regardless of its provenance.
Another popular, and perhaps more easily graspable statistic, is: “If you took all of the information from all US academic research libraries and lumped it all together, it would add up to 2 petabytes. Back in 2008, Google was already processing 20 petabytes a day.”
The actual numbers are unimportant. The point is that there is a vast and chaotic flow of information where importance is not inherently tied to the value or substance of the content but to its ability to capture attention within a highly competitive digital landscape.
Algorithms, the unseen curators of this data deluge, determine what appears on our feeds, pushing the most engaging (not necessarily the most meaningful) content to the forefront. The metrics of virality — likes, shares, comments — are often the key drivers of visibility. These algorithms are complex, constantly evolving, and increasingly self-learning, making it difficult to predict or understand why one piece of content becomes viral while another is relegated to obscurity. What we see, therefore, is a fragmented, ephemeral image of the world shaped by metrics that prioritise short-term engagement over lasting significance.
A stark example of this phenomenon can be seen in the rise and fall of viral social media challenges. Many of these trends captivate global attention for brief periods before fading into digital obscurity. The ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ or the ‘Harlem Shake’ dominated news cycles, discussions and online interactions for short bursts of time, yet their long-term significance — if any — remains unclear. These fleeting moments may have been culturally significant in the immediate present, but their impact on the broader narrative of our era is debatable.
In this flood of ephemeral trends, it becomes incredibly difficult to discern what should be preserved for future generations. Should the fleeting fame of TikTok trends, viral tweets or meme culture define our legacy? Or are they distractions from the deeper, more enduring conversations taking place in smaller, less visible corners of the internet?
And in deciding what is worthwhile, there is a more insidious impact of digital culture that is spreading into what we might — as a desperate, rear-guard action — refer to as ‘the real world’. Phenomena such as deep fakes have a corrosive effect on our trust in what we see, and this is leaching out beyond the online world into traditional media and other corners of society.
The opaque influence of AI
Compounding this issue is the increasing reliance on AI-driven systems in shaping what we see, consume and ultimately preserve. As AI technologies such as recommendation algorithms and content moderation tools evolve, they shape our digital experiences in ways that even their creators may not fully understand.
These algorithms often rely on machine learning, meaning they ‘learn’ and adapt based on patterns in the data they process, but this learning process is not always transparent. The phenomenon known as the ‘black box problem’ in AI refers to the fact that, as these systems grow more sophisticated, they become more opaque. Even the engineers who design them may struggle to explain why an algorithm prioritises one piece of content over another.
This opacity has significant implications for what we choose to value in our collective digital legacy. When algorithms are curating the content we engage with, are they doing so in a way that reflects human values, or are they merely amplifying the most clickable and shareable items? More worryingly, the very notion of ‘importance’ may be skewed by these systems toward the immediate and sensational rather than the historically or culturally valuable.
An example of this can be seen in the news media. Online journalism increasingly relies on algorithms to decide which stories appear at the top of news feeds, with click-through rates often determining a story’s prominence. This has led to the rise of ‘clickbait’ headlines, which prioritise sensationalism over journalistic depth. In this context, stories with significant cultural or historical value may be buried under a mountain of trivial content, ultimately distorting the public’s understanding of what is important.
Preserving a fragmented legacy
In the face of such overwhelming digital chaos, the question arises: how can we know what to preserve? In previous eras, societies curated their material legacies through physical artefacts, written records and oral traditions. Libraries, museums and archives were central institutions responsible for conserving the most important elements of human culture. Today, however, much of our collective knowledge and cultural expression exists online, in digital formats that are prone to obsolescence and subject to the whims of private corporations.
The challenge of digital preservation is exemplified by the loss of data from early internet forums and communities such as Geocities. When Yahoo shut down the popular web-hosting service in 2009, millions of websites were deleted, many of which contained personal narratives, creative works and early digital art that represented the culture of the internet’s formative years. This was an enormous loss to digital history and culture, as Geocities pages often contained reflections of everyday life that historians could have studied for insights into late 1990s and early 2000s digital culture. Although some preservation efforts, such as the Archive Team’s emergency project to save parts of Geocities, were able to capture some of the lost content, vast swaths of early internet culture were irrevocably lost.
Additionally, the vastness of digital content makes it nearly impossible to preserve everything. The Library of Congress attempted to save every tweet on Twitter from its inception, but had to shut down the project in 2017. Meanwhile, a study by the Pew Research Center found that nearly two-fifths of the web pages that were alive in 2013 had vanished by 2023 thanks to link rot. And a quarter of the web pages that existed at some point in the 10 years from 2013–2023 are no longer with us.
Even where efforts are made to preserve, potentially important cultural artefacts — such as memes, blog posts and YouTube videos — are often missed. But it is not only the volume of information that presents a challenge — it is also the fragmentation. Unlike physical artefacts, which are tangible and enduring, digital content is scattered across multiple platforms and formats. Blogs, tweets, Instagram posts and TikTok videos represent a cacophony of voices and perspectives, but they are fleeting by design, meant to capture attention in the moment rather than endure for future generations.
Curating the digital legacy
Given the challenges posed by the digital age and the opaque influence of algorithms, how can humanity regain control over its own legacy? There are several approaches that may help us navigate this complex landscape and preserve what is most important.
1. Human-centred curation: One solution lies in returning some degree of curatorial control to human hands. While algorithms are indispensable in handling vast amounts of data, human editors, curators and archivists play a critical role in identifying and preserving what matters. Crowdsourced initiatives such as Wikipedia demonstrate the power of collective human effort in creating and maintaining valuable records of knowledge. Similarly, cultural institutions such as the Internet Archive work to preserve web content, recognising that certain digital artefacts have long-term cultural or historical significance.
2. Algorithmic transparency and accountability: Another key to regaining control is demanding greater transparency and accountability from the companies and developers that create the algorithms governing our online experiences. By pushing for clearer regulations and ethical guidelines around the use of AI in content curation, society can ensure that these systems are aligned with human values, rather than purely commercial interests.
3. Digital preservation initiatives: Governments and cultural institutions must also invest in comprehensive digital preservation efforts. Projects such as Europeana, which seeks to digitise and preserve Europe’s cultural heritage, offer a model for similar initiatives on a global scale. These efforts can ensure that important digital content is systematically preserved and remains accessible to future generations.
4. Education and digital literacy: Finally, individuals must be equipped with the tools to navigate the digital landscape critically. By fostering digital literacy, we can empower people to discern what is truly valuable in the sea of online content and make informed decisions about what to preserve, share or discard.
Profound challenge
In an age dominated by fleeting digital content and opaque algorithms, humanity faces a profound challenge: how to preserve and curate its own story. The sheer volume of online information, combined with the algorithmic prioritisation of engagement over depth, has made it difficult to control or even understand the genuinely significant ideas and trends of our time.
As AI technologies continue to evolve, the risk of losing control over our material legacy grows. However, by fostering human-centered curation, demanding algorithmic accountability, investing in digital preservation and promoting digital literacy, we can begin to regain some measure of control over what we choose to preserve from the chaos of the digital age.
TX Broswell is virtual curator at large for the Silent Museum.
The illustration at the beginning of this article was generated using AI.
