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Advertising was not made for OP. It was made for people who do not see the difference between ads and search results. It was made for people who impulse buy to

Advertising was not made for OP. It was made for people who do not see the difference between ads and search results. It was made for people who impulse buy to improve their mood. For people who care about pictures, not stats. Personalization tech for ad tech is top of the line. Really pushing that part of ML forward. It drives the internet with billions worth of profit. Ad tech companies can know more about you than intelligence agencies, and sometimes they are one and the same. Targeting is changing how people vote. It is influencing social mobility. It can turn startups into money printing machines. It is not something you can debunk in a single blogpost, just because it does not apply to you. You are the vocal minority.

prophesi 8y ago
I wouldn't say OP is a vocal minority; certainly you've heard your non-techie friends talk about the ridiculous recommendations these algorithms have wrought. I'd like to think that this is the majority, and the minority who can't tell an ad from their search query would make those impulse purchases even without ML. You're just swapping out their random impulse purchase with a different impulse purchase, and neither side knows why they met. The key point in this blog post, I think, is the ineptitude of ML algorithms.
- princeofwands 8y ago
  > the ineptitude of ML algorithms. Computer vision can show greater-than-estimated-human-performance, while still failing hilariously unhuman once in a while. People remember the 1 in a 1000 wonky recommendation that made them do a double-take. Recommendation engines work best for the mean and stereotypical person. That way, you can use information of similar profitable people to effectively recommend. Facebook, for instance, got mined for "suckers". If you are scummy, you want a list of gullible people who click the most stupidest, poorly designed, and shady ads. Ad tech knows where they are and delivers them on a silver platter. Going back 2 decades to serving ads without ML would kill a business. You don't think they thoroughly test a new recommendation engine and see relevant stats go up before they deploy it? You don't think they can serve you more relevant ads when they know you are a 17 year old male vs. a 42 year old woman? Both the data gathering and the algorithms have improved year over year. To say ad tech personalization is terrible, is akin to complaining we don't have AGI.
  - prophesi 8y ago
    Yes, as OP mentions, machine learning can be applied quite well in other fields "like image processing or winning at strategy games." And yes, they test out their new ML algorithms to see how effective they are. But they don't need the machine learning to create their list of "gullible people." Rather, they don't even -need- that list. If you just serve stupid, shady ads that look as close to porn as that platform can get away with, you'd get your desired click-through rate. The actual personalization aspect is just a myth to validate our invasion of privacy.
    - doublekill 8y ago
      They need that list for max profit. Just serving ads without an intelligent platform behind it to know where and when to serve them, will hurt the CTR (which hurts both the ad tech platform and the advertiser). Why would ad tech companies gather data and invade your privacy, and then not use it to sell more profitable ads? That makes no economic sense, but is a costly form of voyeurism. The "myth" you refer to sounds like a poorly thought out conspiracy theory.
  - bambax 8y ago
    > Recommendation engines work best for the mean and stereotypical person Which is to say: personnalization doesn’t work.
    - doublekill 8y ago
      Do you know how matrix factorization works?
_bxg1 8y ago
I have a little more faith in the average person than this. Your comment has an air of intellectual elitism which I don't think is justified.
- beisner 8y ago
  I don’t think anyone is really claiming that people make all their purchases impulsively; most people probably make most of their purchases in an educated way - unless you are very wealthy, you basically have no other choice. That said, everyone will act impulsively some fraction of the time, and some more than others. I’m not particularly susceptible to most targeted advertising, but there are a few memorable times where I’ve bought things (I.e. Brooklinen sheets and an Aer backpack) because of targeted ads on FB. It’s reasonable to think that other people who do less research generally would be much more susceptible to targeting. If you’re able to influence only 2% of all consumer purchases with targeting, that’s still an obscene amount of money.
hesarenu 8y ago
I don't have a ad blocker. If the ad companies have a profile on me then their ad targetting is not very effective. I have similar ad as described by op. Those ML training are not that good. I actually want better recommendations.
- doublekill 8y ago
  You are an expert on ad targeting and ML, because you look at (but do not click) internet ads once in while? This is just another meaningless "me too!".
monadgonad 8y ago
> Ad tech companies can know more about you than intelligence agencies, and sometimes they are one and the same. This is just what advertising companies tell you, to sell you their product - targeted ads. It is not true to anywhere near the extent they would have you believe, for the reasons outlined in the post which are far more than just "it doesn't work on me". In fact, that's not really used as an argument at all.
- doublekill 8y ago
  Which advertising company oversold you their targeted ads? And how did you find out (how much did it cost) it was not true to the extend you believed?

prophesi 8y ago

I wouldn't say OP is a vocal minority; certainly you've heard your non-techie friends talk about the ridiculous recommendations these algorithms have wrought. I'd like to think that this is the majority, and the minority who can't tell an ad from their search query would make those impulse purchases even without ML. You're just swapping out their random impulse purchase with a different impulse purchase, and neither side knows why they met. The key point in this blog post, I think, is the ineptitude of ML algorithms.

princeofwands 8y ago
> the ineptitude of ML algorithms. Computer vision can show greater-than-estimated-human-performance, while still failing hilariously unhuman once in a while. People remember the 1 in a 1000 wonky recommendation that made them do a double-take. Recommendation engines work best for the mean and stereotypical person. That way, you can use information of similar profitable people to effectively recommend. Facebook, for instance, got mined for "suckers". If you are scummy, you want a list of gullible people who click the most stupidest, poorly designed, and shady ads. Ad tech knows where they are and delivers them on a silver platter. Going back 2 decades to serving ads without ML would kill a business. You don't think they thoroughly test a new recommendation engine and see relevant stats go up before they deploy it? You don't think they can serve you more relevant ads when they know you are a 17 year old male vs. a 42 year old woman? Both the data gathering and the algorithms have improved year over year. To say ad tech personalization is terrible, is akin to complaining we don't have AGI.
- prophesi 8y ago
  Yes, as OP mentions, machine learning can be applied quite well in other fields "like image processing or winning at strategy games." And yes, they test out their new ML algorithms to see how effective they are. But they don't need the machine learning to create their list of "gullible people." Rather, they don't even -need- that list. If you just serve stupid, shady ads that look as close to porn as that platform can get away with, you'd get your desired click-through rate. The actual personalization aspect is just a myth to validate our invasion of privacy.
  - doublekill 8y ago
    They need that list for max profit. Just serving ads without an intelligent platform behind it to know where and when to serve them, will hurt the CTR (which hurts both the ad tech platform and the advertiser). Why would ad tech companies gather data and invade your privacy, and then not use it to sell more profitable ads? That makes no economic sense, but is a costly form of voyeurism. The "myth" you refer to sounds like a poorly thought out conspiracy theory.
- bambax 8y ago
  > Recommendation engines work best for the mean and stereotypical person Which is to say: personnalization doesn’t work.
  - doublekill 8y ago
    Do you know how matrix factorization works?

_bxg1 8y ago

I have a little more faith in the average person than this. Your comment has an air of intellectual elitism which I don't think is justified.

beisner 8y ago
I don’t think anyone is really claiming that people make all their purchases impulsively; most people probably make most of their purchases in an educated way - unless you are very wealthy, you basically have no other choice. That said, everyone will act impulsively some fraction of the time, and some more than others. I’m not particularly susceptible to most targeted advertising, but there are a few memorable times where I’ve bought things (I.e. Brooklinen sheets and an Aer backpack) because of targeted ads on FB. It’s reasonable to think that other people who do less research generally would be much more susceptible to targeting. If you’re able to influence only 2% of all consumer purchases with targeting, that’s still an obscene amount of money.

hesarenu 8y ago

I don't have a ad blocker. If the ad companies have a profile on me then their ad targetting is not very effective. I have similar ad as described by op. Those ML training are not that good. I actually want better recommendations.

doublekill 8y ago
You are an expert on ad targeting and ML, because you look at (but do not click) internet ads once in while? This is just another meaningless "me too!".

monadgonad 8y ago

> Ad tech companies can know more about you than intelligence agencies, and sometimes they are one and the same. This is just what advertising companies tell you, to sell you their product - targeted ads. It is not true to anywhere near the extent they would have you believe, for the reasons outlined in the post which are far more than just "it doesn't work on me". In fact, that's not really used as an argument at all.

doublekill 8y ago
Which advertising company oversold you their targeted ads? And how did you find out (how much did it cost) it was not true to the extend you believed?