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The crux seems to be that Google's algorithms are designed to maximize time spent watching. It's frankly absurd how successful they have been at this, especiall
by thisacctforreal 9y ago
The crux seems to be that Google's algorithms are designed to maximize time spent watching. It's frankly absurd how successful they have been at this, especially in younger generations.
It's one thing when their team of PhD's extract attention into cat videos, and another thing to extract it into potentially unhealthy amounts of extremist material and conspiracies.
I don't know what the answer is, but I do miss the days before infinite scroll and autoplay.
- crmd 9y agoOne of my friends is the music director of a US freeform radio station. He’s a legend in the industry known for his encyclopedic knowledge of cool but highly obscure artists over the past 40 years. Over the past year, he has often been left mouth open when YouTube’s algorithm starts picking what’s next after we pick a starting point. “How the hell does it know about these guys?” That’s how good the robots have become.
- jrcii 9y agoIt occurs to me that the widespread interest in conspiracies may stem from a general distrust of information from authorities, which in turn is the result of perceiving the dishonesty upon which all of politics is built, for example.