A lot of pop critical discussion of ML/AI/etc focuses on how crudely it reproduces constructs like race. One implication of that type of argument is that if it did so less crudely, there might be a little more wiggle room for culture in the good sense: diversity of beliefs, subjective complexity, varied associations, different landscapes of what things mean and how. Like this, I guess?
On a gross level, this set of recommendations is spectacularly awful: like, sure, I guess you could think of Henrietta Lacks as “self-made,” or her cell line as “traversing different cultures,” or the ethical nightmare in terms of individual African-American who generated lots of wealth. But that sounds like a ’90s theory-bro cutting loose after way too many bong hits. Then again, maybe we’d do better to frame recommendation engines in terms of stoner d00dz rather than alien intelligences.