3 ms·

The algorithm works really damn well for 99.999% of the cases. It manages to show me great recommendations from very niche things I'm interested in. But it's th

The algorithm works really damn well for 99.999% of the cases. It manages to show me great recommendations from very niche things I'm interested in. But it's the very same behavior that can, in some cases, lead to issues.

Barrin92 7y ago
are you sure that it's not you who knows very well how to curate their own content and who to subscribe to rather than the recommendation system? I'm not sure heavy automation is needed here, people jump from content creator to content creator by word of mouth. In contrast most algorithmic suggestions to me seem highly biased towards what is popular in general. I click on one wrong video in a news article and for the next two days my recommendations are pop music, Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Shapiro and animal videos
- ehsankia 7y ago
  Not for me, for example I've been watching a few PyCon and I/O talks, and it's been showing me other interesting PyCon talks that are highly ranked. It's also giving me good AutoChess and OneHourOneLife Let'sPlays, both of which I've been very interested in lately. All three things I just mentioned are fairly niche, comparatively, yet it knows that I've been watching a lot of them lately and is giving me more of it.
robbrown451 7y ago
I'm reminded of how Google images had an issue where dark skinned people sometimes turned up in a search for gorilla. 99.9% of the time, the image recognition algorithm did really well, but here was a case where an error was really offensive. What was (probably) needed was for there to be a human that comes in and, not tag every gorilla image, but simply to give it some extra training around dark skinned humans and gorillas, or otherwise tweak some things specific to that sort of case, so the chance of it happening was reduced to nearly nothing. There are probably a ton of situations like that in YouTube, where certain kinds of mistakes are hardly noticed (it shows you a video you weren't remotely interested in), but others can be really bad and need special training to avoid (such as where it shows violent or sexual content to someone who likes nursery rhymes and Peppa Pig).
- miemo 7y ago
  if a google employee suggested they check for AI confusing gorillas and black people, damore than likely be fired for thinking it up
  - deanCommie 7y ago
    I sincerely hope you don't actually think that, and did it only for the pun
  - doyoulikeworms 7y ago
    I mean, that's a pretty easy conversation to have, no? "Hey team, when I search for 'gorilla', black people come up instead. Here, look. That's a problem, right? So I'm going to file this JIRA..."
    - krapp 7y ago
      Except what would really happen is people insisting that there's no actual racism involved, because software cannot be racist, rather the purely technical and politically neutral fact that black people do (chromatically speaking) resemble gorillas more than white people, meaning the algorithm is correct to make the association. And once it was changed, people would complain that it's just another example of Google being run by extremist far-left ideologues who are ruining the meritocratic purity of tech with their social justice agenda.
nraynaud 7y ago
To me it always pulls me towards television or Hollywood garbage. And videos I have already watched, hundreds of them.
- jotm 7y ago
  You should check if personalized recommendations are disabled. Google has a history of disabling/enabling settings without telling me.

Barrin92 7y ago

are you sure that it's not you who knows very well how to curate their own content and who to subscribe to rather than the recommendation system? I'm not sure heavy automation is needed here, people jump from content creator to content creator by word of mouth. In contrast most algorithmic suggestions to me seem highly biased towards what is popular in general. I click on one wrong video in a news article and for the next two days my recommendations are pop music, Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Shapiro and animal videos

ehsankia 7y ago
Not for me, for example I've been watching a few PyCon and I/O talks, and it's been showing me other interesting PyCon talks that are highly ranked. It's also giving me good AutoChess and OneHourOneLife Let'sPlays, both of which I've been very interested in lately. All three things I just mentioned are fairly niche, comparatively, yet it knows that I've been watching a lot of them lately and is giving me more of it.

robbrown451 7y ago

I'm reminded of how Google images had an issue where dark skinned people sometimes turned up in a search for gorilla. 99.9% of the time, the image recognition algorithm did really well, but here was a case where an error was really offensive. What was (probably) needed was for there to be a human that comes in and, not tag every gorilla image, but simply to give it some extra training around dark skinned humans and gorillas, or otherwise tweak some things specific to that sort of case, so the chance of it happening was reduced to nearly nothing. There are probably a ton of situations like that in YouTube, where certain kinds of mistakes are hardly noticed (it shows you a video you weren't remotely interested in), but others can be really bad and need special training to avoid (such as where it shows violent or sexual content to someone who likes nursery rhymes and Peppa Pig).

miemo 7y ago
if a google employee suggested they check for AI confusing gorillas and black people, damore than likely be fired for thinking it up
- deanCommie 7y ago
  I sincerely hope you don't actually think that, and did it only for the pun
- doyoulikeworms 7y ago
  I mean, that's a pretty easy conversation to have, no? "Hey team, when I search for 'gorilla', black people come up instead. Here, look. That's a problem, right? So I'm going to file this JIRA..."
  - krapp 7y ago
    Except what would really happen is people insisting that there's no actual racism involved, because software cannot be racist, rather the purely technical and politically neutral fact that black people do (chromatically speaking) resemble gorillas more than white people, meaning the algorithm is correct to make the association. And once it was changed, people would complain that it's just another example of Google being run by extremist far-left ideologues who are ruining the meritocratic purity of tech with their social justice agenda.

nraynaud 7y ago

To me it always pulls me towards television or Hollywood garbage. And videos I have already watched, hundreds of them.

jotm 7y ago
You should check if personalized recommendations are disabled. Google has a history of disabling/enabling settings without telling me.