Dr. Cal Newport

So we want to optimize it.

Watch time.

And everything, all these videos all just exist as multidimensional points in this sort of semantic cloud.

And all we're doing is just showing you things.

And then you swipe another thing, swipe another thing.

So when you get rid of all the noise from a machine learning algorithm, it doesn't also have to satisfy that I follow this person on Instagram or this is my friend.

All I have to do is optimize this one number.

How long did they watch before they swiped?

It just turns out like, oh, it's really easy.

Like you do that for a couple hours.

You're going to hone in on these sub-regions in this massive multidimensional space of stuff that just tickles this particular person's brain.

And it's very cybernetic because now I'm the user of TikTok.

I'm the content creator.

I'm getting immediate feedback what's working, what's not.

I really quickly find these particularly rich regions in this sort of cybernetic space.

And so it's like TikTok just purified something that was simple.

Okay.

basic machine learning, but just like purify what we're doing here.

And that turned out to be enough to create what's like probably the most addictive force we've seen in the digital world in a long time.

Yeah, that's the thought, right?