How to Write Poetry in the Era of Face-Eating Algorithms

In December 2024 (adjusted for the present rate of dystopic acceleration, several eons ago), T. M. Brown published an essay in The Atlantic whose title “You Might Be Worried About the Wrong Algorithms,” could double as a subtitle for William Lessard’s /face. Therein, Brown argues that our tendency to depersonalize the algorithms feeding us recommendations—that is, regard them as inherently abstract and abstracted from human influence—prevents us from resisting the actual people laboring to transform their personal preferences, prejudices, and profit motives into institutions. But how are we to tear the veil of corporatization and identify the individual actors who so carefully preserve their facelessness? 

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