10 ms·

you may have seen it but there is a really scary Ted talk suggesting that it's possible Facebook is using deep learning techniques to optimize for engagement an

you may have seen it but there is a really scary Ted talk suggesting that it's possible Facebook is using deep learning techniques to optimize for engagement and they have no idea why it picks what it picks but it's possible making people choose sides and argue happens to be the best way to meet its goals https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI

nautilus12 9y ago
If this is true then it explains so much. Facebook is trying to get people to be miserable because then they are using facebook more, and its engineered in such a way that it makes us addicted to facebook and want to use it more anyway. Is this enough reason for our society to revolt against facebook? How do we actually make it go away when everyone is addicted to it. Does anyone have any practical tactical strategies to get rid of it?
- trophycase 9y ago
  Just delete it, it's not that difficult.
  - maskedSlacker 9y ago
    It's incredibly liberating in fact. My life is so much better without it. And I'm not missing anything of value. The people who matter can get a hold of me if they want.
    - chowchowchow 9y ago
      Agreed. Deleted last year and, despite all the incredibly disheartening news and current events, my well being has improved so much over the past 14 months.
  - nautilus12 9y ago
    I can delete it for myself, but what about all the people that are addicted and don't know any better?
  - megy 9y ago
    Sure, and then I miss the fact that a friend from overseas is visiting, because he would rather write on facebook then post to everyone/keep their details updated.
    - lossolo 9y ago
      If he really wants to meet with you then he will find a way, even if you are not on facebook. You know there was no facebook 15 years ago, right? and my friends were always finding a way to contact me if they wanted to meet.
      - megy 9y ago
        Such a strange comment. He didn't expect to not find me on facebook, so had no idea I never saw his message. I still have an account, just do not check it. And yes, there was no facebook 15 years ago. That is great, 15 years ago everyone new to SMS or email you. Now, everyone expects you to be on facebook. See the difference?
        jacquesm 9y ago
        So you use Facebook, once to let everybody know you are no longer on Facebook. I'm lucky in the sense that I made a FB account, tried it out for two weeks, realized it wasn't for me and then cancelled so I never got hooked. But I can see that once you are in it takes a bit more effort to get out. But being 'on Facebook' should not be a prerequisite for normal social interaction.
        eropple 9y ago
        > But being 'on Facebook' should not be a prerequisite for normal social interaction. Why not? Collectively it's proven to be the easiest way for groups of loosely and moderately connected people to communicate and coordinate socially, so it's what virtually everyone I know uses. We all use Facebook for events and for Facebook Messenger. The set of friends who live within train/car distance who I communicate with via something other than Facebook Messenger numbers around...four? Out of dozens? And it's not because We Don't Use Facebook, it's because we share a Slack and had an IRC channel before that. By not using it, somebody my age and in my neck of the woods relies on making people who they ostensibly call friends treat them as a special case just to organize beers on a Friday. And it does make that person a special case: why would people use group-SMS anymore when Facebook chats are right there and you don't need to track down phone numbers to include everyone (and deal with sharded SMS threads if people are added, etc.)? The expectation that people special-case your edge-case life decisions has to be balanced against not being a pain in the ass for people you claim are your friends. So, yes, in many quarters Facebook is a prerequisite for normal social interaction (unless you're That Guy, and it's good life advice to never be That Guy). And, TBH? It works fine. It's nothing special. It works fine. I very rarely see a news feed (I use Social Fixer) so I have no real opinion on the way it does likes/shares/etc.; I did tag some people as "close friends" so when they post it does reliably surface, but I don't remember the last time I even scrolled down the news feed and its existence has no impact on the other features of the platform. It is just not that big a deal. It's certainly not worth the airs put on--not from you, but the I-don't-even-own-a-TV levels of smarm from people who don't use Facebook makes my eyes roll out of my head and bounce down the stairs--by people who don't use it.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  There was another article recently about using deep learning to see if people are too depressed and are at suicide risk. It's a nice idea on the surface but it a bit dark thinking that maybe there counterpart to it, that is another AI algorithm which makes the person addicted and depressed to start with. It's a bit like a parasite - it needs to control and extract usefulness from the host but not let the host die quickly because well it won't get the resources anymore and it would die with it.
  - nautilus12 9y ago
    But see my post above, suppose that it decides that it can get a strong burst of engagement from all the sympathy posts, would it chose to kill off some of its hosts that have outlived their usefulness (from an engagement perspective). Does facebook have enough power that it can chose to kill off certain people? Are there examples of people committing suicide solely because of their facebook feeds (I guess how would we know)
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      Just read it. It's a scary potential. It might start doing it automatically one day. If anyone discovers the bug it will be just "oh sorry, just an algorithm bug, we'll tweak it, we promise". > Does facebook have enough power that it can chose to kill off certain people? A I never signed up for Facebook to start with, but I got a glimpse of this power with Netflix. The movie recommendations were so good that I end up liking them if took its advice. Where normally I wouldn't have watched them based on rating, synopsis, or title. I had realized some algorithm at Netflix seems to know me better than I knew myself. Then thought what if it suddenly decided to use that against me, because it somehow would be more profitable for it.
trophycase 9y ago
Don't mean to be rude but isn't it fairly well known that facebook is using deep learning to optimize the feed for engagement? I mean do you really think they are hand tuning these algorithms?
- gaius 9y ago
  The issue isn't the use of DL per se, it's that the resulting NN has independently discovered it can achieve its goal of increasing "engagement" by fuelling negative feedback loops in its test subjects (us). There's blind faith in its effectiveness on the part of its owner, and no oversight.
tomrod 9y ago
Machine Learning, meet economic theory, where people have time-inconsistent decisions and where macro observations of micro-decisions can really throw off your model (big K/little k problem[0]). [0] A decent review with code, a Noble laureate, and a top notch Computational Economist: https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/rational_expectations.html https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/rational_expectations.html
njarboe 9y ago
CGP Grey has an interesting 7 min video on how this might work [1]. Not so easy to summarize but the main part is that opposite sides of an issue are really part of the same meme that need each other to grow. The more polarization the better. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
nautilus12 9y ago
Wait, so theoretically, suppose that a deep learning algorithm figures out that if they bombard someone with tons of images of other people happy during an acutely sad event of their life that they can drive them to suicide, and that this causes a massive peak of engagement from all the people expressing sympathy on their wall, would it do so? Given the fact that facebook is engineered to be addictive and holds the dopamine button on so many people's brains, wouldn't this practically be manslaughter?
- keithnz 9y ago
  Sounds plausable. I certainly like it as a plot line to a story instead of a sentient AI trying to take over the world that unaware deep learning AI takes over and kills us as it adapts to our preferences of sensationalisim and find those destructive social cycles
  - nautilus12 9y ago
    Basically at that point AI becomes an echo chamber for our own evil tendencies...until the point it totally drowns us out. It would make a good novel, but it would be too confusing and depressing, like the Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman, but more frustrating and confusing.
- civilitty 9y ago
  IANAL but based on my understanding, manslaughter generally includes some form of negligence (instead of premeditation like homicide) so until our laws and culture catch up to the power these developers/decision makers actually hold, it's unlikely that a jury would blame the developers (or that a judge would even be sympathetic to the argument). Our society has agreed long ago that drinking and driving is irresponsible so thats why drunk driving fatalities are often prosecuted as manslaughter but the same is not true of software engineers and their creations. We need a sweeping cultural change outside of software engineering just like we had with civil engineers in the 20th century. Nowadays, a professional engineer (a phrase with a precise legal meaning) can be held criminally and civilly liable for negligence even when they are "just following irders." Unfortunately, we're at the very early wild wild west stages of the industry, before some big exposé or calamity completely shakes up the industry (i.e. Sinclair's The Jungle did for food, Carson's Silent Spring for pesticide use, or the 1906 SF earthquake for building codes).
hinkley 9y ago
See, this is the same thing that has turned me off since the very first time I heard of neural nets. I have no interest at all in a solution that can’t be explained. That’s not a solution, that’s a remedy. I don’t have a lot of time for humans that know things but can’t articulate them. Why would I make time for a computer that does the same? It doesn’t even earn the courtesy of give a human. I was drawn into this field by the idea of understanding things and solving problems with them. If AI can’t “show it’s work” homework style, then it might find me a shorter route to the mall but it hasn’t solved anything.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- standyro 9y ago
  Explain in detail all of the minute muscle movements that you make to throw a ball. Not all things that humans learn are easily articulated or explained, not because those humans aren't articulate, but because they learned actions that are more easily intuited. Also, on this topic, explainability of machine learning models is a hot field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7-JtFMLo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7-JtFMLo4 https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938 https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938 https://github.com/marcotcr/lime https://github.com/marcotcr/lime

nautilus12 9y ago

If this is true then it explains so much. Facebook is trying to get people to be miserable because then they are using facebook more, and its engineered in such a way that it makes us addicted to facebook and want to use it more anyway. Is this enough reason for our society to revolt against facebook? How do we actually make it go away when everyone is addicted to it. Does anyone have any practical tactical strategies to get rid of it?

trophycase 9y ago
Just delete it, it's not that difficult.
- maskedSlacker 9y ago
  It's incredibly liberating in fact. My life is so much better without it. And I'm not missing anything of value. The people who matter can get a hold of me if they want.
  - chowchowchow 9y ago
    Agreed. Deleted last year and, despite all the incredibly disheartening news and current events, my well being has improved so much over the past 14 months.
- nautilus12 9y ago
  I can delete it for myself, but what about all the people that are addicted and don't know any better?
- megy 9y ago
  Sure, and then I miss the fact that a friend from overseas is visiting, because he would rather write on facebook then post to everyone/keep their details updated.
  - lossolo 9y ago
    If he really wants to meet with you then he will find a way, even if you are not on facebook. You know there was no facebook 15 years ago, right? and my friends were always finding a way to contact me if they wanted to meet.
    - megy 9y ago
      Such a strange comment. He didn't expect to not find me on facebook, so had no idea I never saw his message. I still have an account, just do not check it. And yes, there was no facebook 15 years ago. That is great, 15 years ago everyone new to SMS or email you. Now, everyone expects you to be on facebook. See the difference?
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        So you use Facebook, once to let everybody know you are no longer on Facebook. I'm lucky in the sense that I made a FB account, tried it out for two weeks, realized it wasn't for me and then cancelled so I never got hooked. But I can see that once you are in it takes a bit more effort to get out. But being 'on Facebook' should not be a prerequisite for normal social interaction.
        eropple 9y ago
        > But being 'on Facebook' should not be a prerequisite for normal social interaction. Why not? Collectively it's proven to be the easiest way for groups of loosely and moderately connected people to communicate and coordinate socially, so it's what virtually everyone I know uses. We all use Facebook for events and for Facebook Messenger. The set of friends who live within train/car distance who I communicate with via something other than Facebook Messenger numbers around...four? Out of dozens? And it's not because We Don't Use Facebook, it's because we share a Slack and had an IRC channel before that. By not using it, somebody my age and in my neck of the woods relies on making people who they ostensibly call friends treat them as a special case just to organize beers on a Friday. And it does make that person a special case: why would people use group-SMS anymore when Facebook chats are right there and you don't need to track down phone numbers to include everyone (and deal with sharded SMS threads if people are added, etc.)? The expectation that people special-case your edge-case life decisions has to be balanced against not being a pain in the ass for people you claim are your friends. So, yes, in many quarters Facebook is a prerequisite for normal social interaction (unless you're That Guy, and it's good life advice to never be That Guy). And, TBH? It works fine. It's nothing special. It works fine. I very rarely see a news feed (I use Social Fixer) so I have no real opinion on the way it does likes/shares/etc.; I did tag some people as "close friends" so when they post it does reliably surface, but I don't remember the last time I even scrolled down the news feed and its existence has no impact on the other features of the platform. It is just not that big a deal. It's certainly not worth the airs put on--not from you, but the I-don't-even-own-a-TV levels of smarm from people who don't use Facebook makes my eyes roll out of my head and bounce down the stairs--by people who don't use it.
rdtsc 9y ago
There was another article recently about using deep learning to see if people are too depressed and are at suicide risk. It's a nice idea on the surface but it a bit dark thinking that maybe there counterpart to it, that is another AI algorithm which makes the person addicted and depressed to start with. It's a bit like a parasite - it needs to control and extract usefulness from the host but not let the host die quickly because well it won't get the resources anymore and it would die with it.
- nautilus12 9y ago
  But see my post above, suppose that it decides that it can get a strong burst of engagement from all the sympathy posts, would it chose to kill off some of its hosts that have outlived their usefulness (from an engagement perspective). Does facebook have enough power that it can chose to kill off certain people? Are there examples of people committing suicide solely because of their facebook feeds (I guess how would we know)
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    Just read it. It's a scary potential. It might start doing it automatically one day. If anyone discovers the bug it will be just "oh sorry, just an algorithm bug, we'll tweak it, we promise". > Does facebook have enough power that it can chose to kill off certain people? A I never signed up for Facebook to start with, but I got a glimpse of this power with Netflix. The movie recommendations were so good that I end up liking them if took its advice. Where normally I wouldn't have watched them based on rating, synopsis, or title. I had realized some algorithm at Netflix seems to know me better than I knew myself. Then thought what if it suddenly decided to use that against me, because it somehow would be more profitable for it.

trophycase 9y ago

Don't mean to be rude but isn't it fairly well known that facebook is using deep learning to optimize the feed for engagement? I mean do you really think they are hand tuning these algorithms?

gaius 9y ago
The issue isn't the use of DL per se, it's that the resulting NN has independently discovered it can achieve its goal of increasing "engagement" by fuelling negative feedback loops in its test subjects (us). There's blind faith in its effectiveness on the part of its owner, and no oversight.

tomrod 9y ago

Machine Learning, meet economic theory, where people have time-inconsistent decisions and where macro observations of micro-decisions can really throw off your model (big K/little k problem[0]). [0] A decent review with code, a Noble laureate, and a top notch Computational Economist: https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/rational_expectations.html https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/rational_expectations.html

njarboe 9y ago

CGP Grey has an interesting 7 min video on how this might work [1]. Not so easy to summarize but the main part is that opposite sides of an issue are really part of the same meme that need each other to grow. The more polarization the better. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

nautilus12 9y ago

Wait, so theoretically, suppose that a deep learning algorithm figures out that if they bombard someone with tons of images of other people happy during an acutely sad event of their life that they can drive them to suicide, and that this causes a massive peak of engagement from all the people expressing sympathy on their wall, would it do so? Given the fact that facebook is engineered to be addictive and holds the dopamine button on so many people's brains, wouldn't this practically be manslaughter?

keithnz 9y ago
Sounds plausable. I certainly like it as a plot line to a story instead of a sentient AI trying to take over the world that unaware deep learning AI takes over and kills us as it adapts to our preferences of sensationalisim and find those destructive social cycles
- nautilus12 9y ago
  Basically at that point AI becomes an echo chamber for our own evil tendencies...until the point it totally drowns us out. It would make a good novel, but it would be too confusing and depressing, like the Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman, but more frustrating and confusing.
civilitty 9y ago
IANAL but based on my understanding, manslaughter generally includes some form of negligence (instead of premeditation like homicide) so until our laws and culture catch up to the power these developers/decision makers actually hold, it's unlikely that a jury would blame the developers (or that a judge would even be sympathetic to the argument). Our society has agreed long ago that drinking and driving is irresponsible so thats why drunk driving fatalities are often prosecuted as manslaughter but the same is not true of software engineers and their creations. We need a sweeping cultural change outside of software engineering just like we had with civil engineers in the 20th century. Nowadays, a professional engineer (a phrase with a precise legal meaning) can be held criminally and civilly liable for negligence even when they are "just following irders." Unfortunately, we're at the very early wild wild west stages of the industry, before some big exposé or calamity completely shakes up the industry (i.e. Sinclair's The Jungle did for food, Carson's Silent Spring for pesticide use, or the 1906 SF earthquake for building codes).

hinkley 9y ago

See, this is the same thing that has turned me off since the very first time I heard of neural nets. I have no interest at all in a solution that can’t be explained. That’s not a solution, that’s a remedy. I don’t have a lot of time for humans that know things but can’t articulate them. Why would I make time for a computer that does the same? It doesn’t even earn the courtesy of give a human. I was drawn into this field by the idea of understanding things and solving problems with them. If AI can’t “show it’s work” homework style, then it might find me a shorter route to the mall but it hasn’t solved anything.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
standyro 9y ago
Explain in detail all of the minute muscle movements that you make to throw a ball. Not all things that humans learn are easily articulated or explained, not because those humans aren't articulate, but because they learned actions that are more easily intuited. Also, on this topic, explainability of machine learning models is a hot field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7-JtFMLo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7-JtFMLo4 https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938 https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04938 https://github.com/marcotcr/lime https://github.com/marcotcr/lime