27 ms·

The end result still remains: introducing bias.

by 127 8y ago

untog 8y ago
Google is nothing but a collection of biases. Even in the early days, PageRank meant that Google was biased towards sites that get linked to more than others. That was a value judgement they made about what best served their customers. This is no different.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  And in those early days, everyone knew that "citation clubs" were a way to attack Google's algorithm... just like how you attack academic citation indices or "impact factor". Then google defended against that, and then...
- 127 8y ago
  It only became a problem after the rise of unwanted political opinions.
  - untog 8y ago
    It became a problem almost immediately. PageRank had issues because people got wise and formed link farms to cheat the system. So Google added more tweaks. Repeat this x10000 and you get to 2018.
    - wolco 8y ago
      The diversity of quality results has gone down. Page 2 use to have a few gems. Now one or two words will dominate and you see the same results for different queries that share two terms at the beginning.
- jlawson 8y ago
  This is a dangerous general-purpose justification which allows mega-corporations to manipulate global information flow in any way they like. Now Google leadership doesn't just get to be wealthy, they get to manipulate how everyone else sees the world, with no limits or accountability, because hey everything is biased right? It may sound good because they agree with you on this particular issue. But this justification applies to any other government or corporation who can manage to seize the reins of technological power. You're making a memetic weapon that, soon, will be turned against you. No. Neutrality is a real thing and it should be upheld as a serious goal and principle. Especially when we're taking about a group with such insane amounts of unjustified and undemocratic control over other people. We need to do everything we can culturally to make that influence less unequal.
  - GW150914 8y ago
    You’re not wrong, but at the same time what’s the solution that isn’t just a matter of the people complaining manipulating global information flow in the way they like? Most of the time behind the flashlight-under-the-chin tales of potential doom, the solution seems to be a shift to whichever political pole the speaker prefers. I’d like a less restricted flow of information, but I don’t know how to get it, and no one seems to be offering good ideas. The best I can offer is that it’s important to fight for freedom to access any source, so you can compare and contrast and draw your own conclusions. Google can dominate convenience, it they don’t actually stop you from checking other search engines. A media outlet can have a major bias, but in a free country that doesn’t censor non-state media you can pick up other sources for comparison. It’s messy, it’s work, but what are the alternatives that respects the 1st amendment? Just hand-waving some claims about “de facto monopolies” is a non-starter imo. How do we improve the situation without pretending that a given social medial or advertise company has to be regulated to death, and in a way that doesn’t just amount to, “Keep it biased, but it needs to be my preferred bias.”
  - jtmcmc 8y ago
    I think this is a weird view of how bias works. statistical models are imperfect models and are always going to have lots of bias or variance. We typically want to bias models using domain expertise or other external factors. This is like being mad at a company for using L1 regularization
    - humanrebar 8y ago
      The difference is how much practical diversity we'll have in models. With enough effective choice, the severity of biased models goes down, at least somewhat. Models biased in different directions can provide a variety of perspectives.
    - _dps 8y ago
      These are different uses of the word "bias". In the statistical sense there is an objectively true right answer and "bias" refers to the difference between a model's average answer and the average true answer. It has little to do with the lay use of the word to mean the application of an inappropriate subjective value judgement in a situation with no one true answer (unless you take an extremely anthropomorphic view of statistical formulas).
- rdtsc 8y ago
  > Google is nothing but a collection of biases. That's not the problem, we know it, they know it, everyone knows. What is upsetting people is the pretense of them being unbiased. Now in this case they just discussed and it seems never implemented these measures. Come to think of it maybe they should have implemented those measures. Maybe they should stop pretending to be unbiased and embrace the bias. It's not like anyone would be surprised by it. People were shocked about that leaked meeting video where Google executive were crying after the election results and referred to the loss as "we lost". But it shouldn't have been that surprising, it was exactly what I expected would be in the video. > This is no different. They took a political issue wanted to insert themselves in the middle of it by manipulating what facts people see regarding that topic. Now most here agree here with their position, so this doesn't bother us too much. But I don't really this as "the same as PageRank".
komali2 8y ago
I guess just sort results alphabetically then? Or what's your idea?
TomMckenny 8y ago
Google's job is to return the result that the user is looking for. Certainly not results that come from manipulating the algorithm. I'm guessing that users searching for "Mexico" are not overwhelmingly interested in diatribes of racial inferiority. An algorithm that heavily returns such results is obviously broken.
- wolco 8y ago
  What about girlsinmexico? It's the most popular site related to Mexico. Should it come up first? Google's job is in no way to provide you with the results you are looking for. If showing you sites you are not interested in, keeps you engaged longer/sells more ads they will.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  Yes. And I'm surprised by Google's insistence that they did not change their algorithm even though there appeared to be some algorithmic bias effect against Muslims and Latinos. Wouldn't Google want to study that possible source of bias and fix it, or if not, explain it to the public or to the Googlers who saw it in the first place?
Tyrubias 8y ago
There have been a number of complaints that Google has racially/sexually inappropriate results (i. e. people have reported that searching for "Jews" returns anti-Semitic results), so this could be seen as a way to balance the scales rather than introducing further bias. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/found-out-about-jew/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/found-out-about-jew/
akhilcacharya 8y ago
I’m sure they also are “biased” in de-prioritizing content from fringe conspiracy theory sites too, is tha a problem as well?

The end result still remains: introducing bias.

by 127 8y ago

The end result still remains: introducing bias.

Google is nothing but a collection of biases. Even in the early days, PageRank meant that Google was biased towards sites that get linked to more than others. That was a value judgement they made about what best served their customers. This is no different.

greglindahl 8y ago
And in those early days, everyone knew that "citation clubs" were a way to attack Google's algorithm... just like how you attack academic citation indices or "impact factor". Then google defended against that, and then...
127 8y ago
It only became a problem after the rise of unwanted political opinions.
- untog 8y ago
  It became a problem almost immediately. PageRank had issues because people got wise and formed link farms to cheat the system. So Google added more tweaks. Repeat this x10000 and you get to 2018.
  - wolco 8y ago
    The diversity of quality results has gone down. Page 2 use to have a few gems. Now one or two words will dominate and you see the same results for different queries that share two terms at the beginning.
jlawson 8y ago
This is a dangerous general-purpose justification which allows mega-corporations to manipulate global information flow in any way they like. Now Google leadership doesn't just get to be wealthy, they get to manipulate how everyone else sees the world, with no limits or accountability, because hey everything is biased right? It may sound good because they agree with you on this particular issue. But this justification applies to any other government or corporation who can manage to seize the reins of technological power. You're making a memetic weapon that, soon, will be turned against you. No. Neutrality is a real thing and it should be upheld as a serious goal and principle. Especially when we're taking about a group with such insane amounts of unjustified and undemocratic control over other people. We need to do everything we can culturally to make that influence less unequal.
- GW150914 8y ago
  You’re not wrong, but at the same time what’s the solution that isn’t just a matter of the people complaining manipulating global information flow in the way they like? Most of the time behind the flashlight-under-the-chin tales of potential doom, the solution seems to be a shift to whichever political pole the speaker prefers. I’d like a less restricted flow of information, but I don’t know how to get it, and no one seems to be offering good ideas. The best I can offer is that it’s important to fight for freedom to access any source, so you can compare and contrast and draw your own conclusions. Google can dominate convenience, it they don’t actually stop you from checking other search engines. A media outlet can have a major bias, but in a free country that doesn’t censor non-state media you can pick up other sources for comparison. It’s messy, it’s work, but what are the alternatives that respects the 1st amendment? Just hand-waving some claims about “de facto monopolies” is a non-starter imo. How do we improve the situation without pretending that a given social medial or advertise company has to be regulated to death, and in a way that doesn’t just amount to, “Keep it biased, but it needs to be my preferred bias.”
- jtmcmc 8y ago
  I think this is a weird view of how bias works. statistical models are imperfect models and are always going to have lots of bias or variance. We typically want to bias models using domain expertise or other external factors. This is like being mad at a company for using L1 regularization
  - humanrebar 8y ago
    The difference is how much practical diversity we'll have in models. With enough effective choice, the severity of biased models goes down, at least somewhat. Models biased in different directions can provide a variety of perspectives.
  - _dps 8y ago
    These are different uses of the word "bias". In the statistical sense there is an objectively true right answer and "bias" refers to the difference between a model's average answer and the average true answer. It has little to do with the lay use of the word to mean the application of an inappropriate subjective value judgement in a situation with no one true answer (unless you take an extremely anthropomorphic view of statistical formulas).
rdtsc 8y ago
> Google is nothing but a collection of biases. That's not the problem, we know it, they know it, everyone knows. What is upsetting people is the pretense of them being unbiased. Now in this case they just discussed and it seems never implemented these measures. Come to think of it maybe they should have implemented those measures. Maybe they should stop pretending to be unbiased and embrace the bias. It's not like anyone would be surprised by it. People were shocked about that leaked meeting video where Google executive were crying after the election results and referred to the loss as "we lost". But it shouldn't have been that surprising, it was exactly what I expected would be in the video. > This is no different. They took a political issue wanted to insert themselves in the middle of it by manipulating what facts people see regarding that topic. Now most here agree here with their position, so this doesn't bother us too much. But I don't really this as "the same as PageRank".

komali2 8y ago

I guess just sort results alphabetically then? Or what's your idea?

TomMckenny 8y ago

Google's job is to return the result that the user is looking for. Certainly not results that come from manipulating the algorithm. I'm guessing that users searching for "Mexico" are not overwhelmingly interested in diatribes of racial inferiority. An algorithm that heavily returns such results is obviously broken.

wolco 8y ago
What about girlsinmexico? It's the most popular site related to Mexico. Should it come up first? Google's job is in no way to provide you with the results you are looking for. If showing you sites you are not interested in, keeps you engaged longer/sells more ads they will.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
Yes. And I'm surprised by Google's insistence that they did not change their algorithm even though there appeared to be some algorithmic bias effect against Muslims and Latinos. Wouldn't Google want to study that possible source of bias and fix it, or if not, explain it to the public or to the Googlers who saw it in the first place?

Tyrubias 8y ago

There have been a number of complaints that Google has racially/sexually inappropriate results (i. e. people have reported that searching for "Jews" returns anti-Semitic results), so this could be seen as a way to balance the scales rather than introducing further bias. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/found-out-about-jew/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/found-out-about-jew/

akhilcacharya 8y ago

I’m sure they also are “biased” in de-prioritizing content from fringe conspiracy theory sites too, is tha a problem as well?