5 ms·

I mean, the article covers the research and all so maybe I'm just out of my depth... but I can't help feeling like there's a fair bit of tech astrology going on

by weego 9y ago

I mean, the article covers the research and all so maybe I'm just out of my depth... but I can't help feeling like there's a fair bit of tech astrology going on here.

kdelok 9y ago
I went to uni with the guy who didn't share his stuff with Cambridge Analytica (Kosinski). He presented the likes -> OCEAN analysis and it was pretty compelling (and frightening) stuff. In particular, with enough likes, it could deduce things such as gender, race and sexual orientation. Obviously in the wrong contexts, this information is extremely sensitive.
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Gender and race doesnt seem very farfetched. You can get halfway there with just the name of a person. Add location and you’re almost there.
  - EB-Barrington 9y ago
    FYI - I should have added, my name was never given, nor was any other "personal" information. Nothing more was provided other than a paragraph of text I had previously written, the contents of which had nothing to do with me personally.
    - vbo 9y ago
      They might've extracted useful information from your IP address/geolocation or your useragent, ie maybe figuring out you're accessing the site from tech company X's network. Given tech companies ratio of male to female employees, they may have been able to infer you are male. Also, tech companies pay well, so that's another information nugget about you, etc. The more signals they have, the more precise the outcome.
      - EB-Barrington 9y ago
        Yes, agree. So I should add, just for discussion: 1) I'm self employed. 2) I'm always connected via a VPN connected to a continent that isn't my home continent. 3) I haven't connected to the internet via a "company" network in over five years. I could infer that you are male from the way you type, and I guess you're somewhere between 25 and 35. I haven't looked up your username or anything else, it's just a "feeling". Given millions of paragraphs of text linked to millions of known demographic and other data points (provided by Facebook), a paragraph is all a well-tuned system would need to make quite accurate assumptions about the person who typed the paragraph. Again, likes are not required anymore.
        RyanZAG 9y ago
        > I could infer that you are male from the way you type, and I guess you're somewhere between 25 and 35. I haven't looked up your username or anything else, it's just a "feeling". I think you only really need one or two obvious tells for something like that. The guy you replied to used ", etc.". I think that alone puts him into the bracket you've given, so I'm fairly sure you're correct here. Looking forward to hearing if you are.
        vbo 9y ago
        You could also do sentiment analysis on your dataset and link it to likes. Basically the more signals you have the more you can narrow down your classifications or correlations. Btw, your inference is correct. Course, one could argue that it is informed by 25-35 males being one of the most common demographics on HN.
- EB-Barrington 9y ago
  I remember posting a random paragraph of text I had previously created into an "analyser" on the Cambridge Analytica website - as an alternative to giving Cambridge Analytica access to my FB profile. It then accurately deduced my gender, race, sexual orientation, age group, and other key data - all from a single paragraph. No "likes" required anymore.
  - laretluval 9y ago
    Would it have been inaccurate for you if it was just guessing based on base rates?
- pacala 9y ago
  OCEAN stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits.
  - narrowingorbits 9y ago
    *Conscientiousness
    - pacala 9y ago
      Fixed, thanks!
- mc32 9y ago
  Maybe the "genius", if it can be called that was FB only allowing likes, rather than dislikes. You have to really agree with something to like it, as the default is to not react, and when you do react, most energy is to disapprove of something (for example, negative feedback, online reviews, etc.), so if someone gives something positive feedback it must have nonmarginal significance. That said, the conclusions are very much expected. If i know what you like, i can know what kind of person you might be.
vbo 9y ago
Not necessarily. It should be fairly straightforward to build correlations like "People who like Breitbart are likely to vote Trump" (and less obvious ones) to help target specifically crafted ads to the people who are most likely to respond positively to them. It's not rocket science, but effective. Basically demographics on steroids.
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Isnt this just simply marketing/targeted advertising? There is no voodoo or psychographics going on here. Honestly, I think people are giving Cambridge way too much credit. I have seen enough overblown promises in the big data, AI, <insert buzz word> industry to know people just make things sound more innovative than it really is.
  - verylittlemeat 9y ago
    I agree with you. People seem to be equating a political profile and targeted advertising with a brain ray that makes people pull the lever for a funded candidate. Just to take one high level example: Facebook was still "thefacebook" and closed to the public by the time George W. Bush was elected to the white house for a second term. How can we honestly winkwink/nudgenudge a "stolen election" at the feet of facebook or CA when clearly liberal politics were defeated in 2000/2004 with standard political rhetoric? Why are we giving facebook/CA credit for having so much political power? I hate to use such a broad lens for the recent incident and I hope I'm communicating what I'm intending to here. I just don't see how somehow this incident "changed everything" or even changed much of anything when you look at the history how campaigns get people to vote for their candidate. People don't want to hear this but targeted memes didn't make people anti-abortion or pro-nazi or whatever conserative boogey-man you pick. Conservative voters are people not a pathology. You may not like their views or the way they vote but this whole "people who don't think the way I do are brainwashed" thing has to go. You're buying that argument at your own peril because conservatives aren't going anywhere.
    - queerfeminist 9y ago
finnthehuman 9y ago
I can't help feeling like there's a fair bit of tech astrology going on here Perfection is a red herring, as long as it's more accurate than the alternatives people will want to use it.
blablabla123 9y ago
Or maybe tech combined with astrology. FWIW in retrospect I'm happy that already years ago I stripped my Facebook account to the bare minimum
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by weego 9y ago

I mean, the article covers the research and all so maybe I'm just out of my depth... but I can't help feeling like there's a fair bit of tech astrology going on here.

kdelok 9y ago

I went to uni with the guy who didn't share his stuff with Cambridge Analytica (Kosinski). He presented the likes -> OCEAN analysis and it was pretty compelling (and frightening) stuff. In particular, with enough likes, it could deduce things such as gender, race and sexual orientation. Obviously in the wrong contexts, this information is extremely sensitive.

AznHisoka 9y ago
Gender and race doesnt seem very farfetched. You can get halfway there with just the name of a person. Add location and you’re almost there.
- EB-Barrington 9y ago
  FYI - I should have added, my name was never given, nor was any other "personal" information. Nothing more was provided other than a paragraph of text I had previously written, the contents of which had nothing to do with me personally.
  - vbo 9y ago
    They might've extracted useful information from your IP address/geolocation or your useragent, ie maybe figuring out you're accessing the site from tech company X's network. Given tech companies ratio of male to female employees, they may have been able to infer you are male. Also, tech companies pay well, so that's another information nugget about you, etc. The more signals they have, the more precise the outcome.
    - EB-Barrington 9y ago
      Yes, agree. So I should add, just for discussion: 1) I'm self employed. 2) I'm always connected via a VPN connected to a continent that isn't my home continent. 3) I haven't connected to the internet via a "company" network in over five years. I could infer that you are male from the way you type, and I guess you're somewhere between 25 and 35. I haven't looked up your username or anything else, it's just a "feeling". Given millions of paragraphs of text linked to millions of known demographic and other data points (provided by Facebook), a paragraph is all a well-tuned system would need to make quite accurate assumptions about the person who typed the paragraph. Again, likes are not required anymore.
      - RyanZAG 9y ago
        > I could infer that you are male from the way you type, and I guess you're somewhere between 25 and 35. I haven't looked up your username or anything else, it's just a "feeling". I think you only really need one or two obvious tells for something like that. The guy you replied to used ", etc.". I think that alone puts him into the bracket you've given, so I'm fairly sure you're correct here. Looking forward to hearing if you are.
      - vbo 9y ago
        You could also do sentiment analysis on your dataset and link it to likes. Basically the more signals you have the more you can narrow down your classifications or correlations. Btw, your inference is correct. Course, one could argue that it is informed by 25-35 males being one of the most common demographics on HN.
EB-Barrington 9y ago
I remember posting a random paragraph of text I had previously created into an "analyser" on the Cambridge Analytica website - as an alternative to giving Cambridge Analytica access to my FB profile. It then accurately deduced my gender, race, sexual orientation, age group, and other key data - all from a single paragraph. No "likes" required anymore.
- laretluval 9y ago
  Would it have been inaccurate for you if it was just guessing based on base rates?
pacala 9y ago
OCEAN stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits.
- narrowingorbits 9y ago
  *Conscientiousness
  - pacala 9y ago
    Fixed, thanks!
mc32 9y ago
Maybe the "genius", if it can be called that was FB only allowing likes, rather than dislikes. You have to really agree with something to like it, as the default is to not react, and when you do react, most energy is to disapprove of something (for example, negative feedback, online reviews, etc.), so if someone gives something positive feedback it must have nonmarginal significance. That said, the conclusions are very much expected. If i know what you like, i can know what kind of person you might be.

vbo 9y ago

Not necessarily. It should be fairly straightforward to build correlations like "People who like Breitbart are likely to vote Trump" (and less obvious ones) to help target specifically crafted ads to the people who are most likely to respond positively to them. It's not rocket science, but effective. Basically demographics on steroids.

AznHisoka 9y ago
Isnt this just simply marketing/targeted advertising? There is no voodoo or psychographics going on here. Honestly, I think people are giving Cambridge way too much credit. I have seen enough overblown promises in the big data, AI, <insert buzz word> industry to know people just make things sound more innovative than it really is.
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  I agree with you. People seem to be equating a political profile and targeted advertising with a brain ray that makes people pull the lever for a funded candidate. Just to take one high level example: Facebook was still "thefacebook" and closed to the public by the time George W. Bush was elected to the white house for a second term. How can we honestly winkwink/nudgenudge a "stolen election" at the feet of facebook or CA when clearly liberal politics were defeated in 2000/2004 with standard political rhetoric? Why are we giving facebook/CA credit for having so much political power? I hate to use such a broad lens for the recent incident and I hope I'm communicating what I'm intending to here. I just don't see how somehow this incident "changed everything" or even changed much of anything when you look at the history how campaigns get people to vote for their candidate. People don't want to hear this but targeted memes didn't make people anti-abortion or pro-nazi or whatever conserative boogey-man you pick. Conservative voters are people not a pathology. You may not like their views or the way they vote but this whole "people who don't think the way I do are brainwashed" thing has to go. You're buying that argument at your own peril because conservatives aren't going anywhere.
  - queerfeminist 9y ago

finnthehuman 9y ago

I can't help feeling like there's a fair bit of tech astrology going on here Perfection is a red herring, as long as it's more accurate than the alternatives people will want to use it.

blablabla123 9y ago

Or maybe tech combined with astrology. FWIW in retrospect I'm happy that already years ago I stripped my Facebook account to the bare minimum

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]