Personal Filters and Cognitive Biases

Every day, we get served up "suggested content" based on what some algorithm determines we "should" be looking at... or want to look at.

I hate to say it, but the percentage of the time the system gets my recommendations completely wrong seems remarkably high!

Of course, I also must confess that sometimes I deliberately mess with the algorithm by searching for something I really need information about, and then almost immediately after that searching for information about its exact opposite.

Of course, "messing with the system" is a bit of a misnomer here because I am only messing with the system in the sense that I don't want the search results I am exposed to to reflect some sort of strange echo chamber that confirms what I already believe, as opposed to a more broad-based sampling of the actual information available.

You might wonder what difference it makes, and how the input of a single individual (like me) could actually make a difference to some global algorithm, but just a couple of months back I was watching a YouTube video in which somebody was showing how it takes no more than a few dozen strange responses to retrain AI to think something that is not true has become true.

To be honest, I find that whole possibility a little disturbing. And it would be particularly disturbing if you had something like — say — a neurosurgeon gathering part of their procedural information from AI that somebody had deliberately misinformed.

Regardless, we all have our personal filters and they tend to inform how we see the world and what we believe to be true when we are exposed to a number of different possibilities. Regardless of how unbiased we might think we are we tend to automatically steer towards our confirmation biases, that is to say the things we've already made up our mind to be true.

It is interesting, because a lot of people who claim that they are very open-minded soon enough turn out to be not open-minded at all! They are closed off to possibilities other than the ones they have already formed an attachment to.

Ironically, our very best teachers are often the ones who bring up a viewpoint that is quite contradictory to our own, and thereby we are required to think about our point of view and to consider the possibility that maybe it is not true or not the optimum choice.

Consider how often we see this first hand in areas such as politics and religion, where people are often completely shut off to anything that doesn't fit their pre-established paradigm. I don't know if it's because we are afraid of having our assumptions challenged, or because we are afraid we will have to change our entire worldview if it turns out that somebody else might offer something better than what we have professed loyalty for.

I'm by no means claiming that I have any answers here, just the recommendation that we should perhaps be mindful, rather than defensive, when something that gets our attention suddenly comes up in our lives.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!

How about YOU? Are you aware of your personal filters and cognitive biases? Are you ever afraid that you are caught in an echo chamber of your own making? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2026.04.26 23:45 PST
x1075/2309