CONCEPT
The Attention Economy
The economic system in which human attention is harvested, packaged, and sold to advertisers — the infrastructure that drives the algorithmic pathologies Gore calls artificial insanity.
The attention economy names the business model under which most digital platforms operate: providing free services in exchange for user attention, which is then sold to advertisers at prices determined by the precision with which the attention can be targeted. Gore has identified this model as the structural driver of the algorithmic pathologies degrading democratic deliberation. The incentive to maximize time-on-platform produces engagement optimization, which systematically favors content producing emotional arousal over content informing rational deliberation. The pathology is not a design bug. It is the intended consequence of the economic model, and it cannot be fixed by individual platforms without altering the competitive dynamics that make ruthless optimization the rational strategy.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Gore's analysis follows Tim Wu, Shoshana Zuboff, and the broader literature that has mapped the attention economy's architecture. Every design decision — infinite scroll, notification system, recommendation algorithm, variable reward schedule — serves a single objective: maximize the quantity and predictability of