We’re surrounded by tools that promise to think for us: to summarise, recommend, decide. But taste, the kind that argues, changes its mind, gets it wrong sometimes, still belongs to us alone. This week’s #TheEdit is about the discernment only a person can bring – and what we lose when we hand it over. 

• Please judge the books I’m reading. Why the wild subjectivity of a panel arguing, changing minds, banging a fist on the table, is exactly what makes literary prizes worth having – The New York Times
• How we meet the future. When is stereotyping a handy tool, and when is it a sin? Generalising is how we make sense of a chaotic world. The trouble starts when we stop testing our shortcuts against reality – Aeon
• Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks says he knows the real cause. He delves into the complexity of human needs, transcendence, love, suffering that means something, that no amount of convenience can substitute for – Big Think
• Claudia Hammond on coping with news overwhelm. Being your own news editor beats letting notifications decide for you. A study shows news-watchers were more stressed than people who lived through the event – Delayed Gratification
• Are people in creative professions happier? It’s complicated. Creative work doesn’t produce happiness so much as somewhere to put difficult emotion – Fast Company  
• History repeats? The déjà vu of technology’s disruption. What can past waves of technological advancement teach us about adapting to this one? – The Beautiful Truth