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>Should the government require that Google search, Facebook and YouTube recommendation algorithms be published? Many folks often wish that ranking/recommendat

by jasode 7y ago

>Should the government require that Google search, Facebook and YouTube recommendation algorithms be published? Many folks often wish that ranking/recommendation algorithms like PageRank search engine, or Youtube "watch next", or email spam heuristics, etc, be revealed to the public. E.g. the exact algorithm is required by law to be published on Github. That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. That's the paradox or contradiction: for the algorithms to be effective, they have to be kept a secret to prevent gaming. Recommendation/ranking algorithms are not to be confused with "security by obscurity" memes. Yes, you can publish the exact algorithm to derive a SHA-256 but that's not the same domain as a ranking algorithm. For Google to transition the algorithms from basic PageRank to Panda to Penguin to Hummingbird, etc ... the inner workings must be kept secret to be effective. I know it drives people crazy that the algorithms are secret but you can't make them public in a way that stops abusers from using that knowledge against us.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I don't see why the gaming problem you describe matters in anything but the absolute shortest term. If algorithms are gamed they'll have to be modified to be resistant to gaming in order to deliver effective results. As the game of cat and mouse goes on it would result in us refining our algorithms to the point where they actually measure what we want rather than an approximation of what we want. Eventually "gaming the algorithms" would be the same as producing high quality content. Yes refining algorithms to that point would be hard work but it would get figured out.
- jasode 7y ago
  >If algorithms are gamed they'll have to be modified to be resistant to gaming As far as I know, nobody in computer science has come up with a ranking algorithm that can't be gamed to render the algorithm useless. (Unless the so-called algorithm is a trivial case such as the runner with the fastest time across the finish line is the "winner" of the race.) For a multi-criteria algorithm that approximates a hazy idea like "video quality" that uses various signals as proxies for quality, the algorithm's exact source code must be kept a secret. Yes, you can publicize broad outlines of what the algorithm does but you can't reveal the actual code (or the actual machine learning weights, etc). Yes, an algorithm like a SHA256 hash source code can be made transparently public and still can't be "abused" such that a bad actor can make the string "DEADBEEF" appear anywhere they want in the output hash. This class of algorithm behaves differently than ranking/recommendation algorithms.
eloff 7y ago
As someone else pointed out, tax laws are public (like all laws) and we don't specifically think it's worthwhile keeping them secret to avoid gaming the system. So I don't buy that argument off hand. Plus people are already gaming the system, it's just the knowledge to do so is imperfect and unfairly distributed. Leveling the playing field there puts more focus on making the algorithm less vulnerable in the first place instead of effectively relying on security through obscurity.
jsonne 7y ago
"That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused." This happens without it being public knowledge and is commonly referred to as SEO. Keeping the black box a block box hurts more than helps because the privileged few that do have it figured out completely control the narrative. In addition a publicly published algo helps re-introduce competition. I see it as no different than food products being required to list ingredients.
- jasode 7y ago
  >This happens without it being public knowledge and is commonly referred to as SEO. I'm not claiming that absolutely zero gaming is possible. For all the successes that the SEO industry achieves, it's still a version of the proverbial blind men (SEO experts) feeling different parts of a giant elephant (the opaque Google algorithm). That's why SEO practitioners still get blindsided by new search engine changes by Google.
denzil_correa 7y ago
> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. That's the paradox or contradiction: for the algorithms to be effective, they have to be kept a secret to prevent gaming. What level of algorithmic transparency can one achieve without sacrificing gaming? I ask this question because this is a common discussion for many aspects in our society. For example, we have designed laws over 100s of years despite the knowledge that they can be prone to gaming. The existence of gaming itself is not a good enough reason to have ZERO algorithmic transparency.
tunesmith 7y ago
It's not always true that an algorithm for influencing behavior has to be secret to be effective. I remember reading about "proper scoring rules" where the only way to maximize your score is to behave in the desired way. The real flaw here is that we're defining valuable content in terms of popularity.
gregw134 7y ago
Google already publishes 150+ pages of rater guidelines (i.e. what it's looking for in a site): https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jlokier 7y ago
> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. That's an important consideration, but I don't think it is known to be inevitable. It seems like a worthy research goal, to develop algorithms which are not gameable (in defined ways) despite knowing the algorithms. Consider how publishing good encryption algorithms does not render the encryption breakable. And the research being done now on Differential Privacy techniques, to allow large scale data collection from individuals without compromising individual privacy. I suspect there is an analogous class of algorithms that resist being gamed in ways that matter. Possibly requiring that the deployed algorithm depend on a secret key or random seed, but that would be fine as long as the secret does not encode another algorithm.
winternett 7y ago
Algorithms get gamed by either the public or by the shareholder-based companies that create them... Companies are the LEAST dependable ones to create truly uncorrupt algorithms for social media. They adjust everything to drive sales, to drive profit, to drive ad revenue, because year over year shareholders expect profit growth. Creating social media presence used to be fair, but now as a content creator, the ONLY way to get noticed is to game the system. Rich people and companies prevail against algorithms because they can hire companies to boost their views, and to create followers, and to create massive campaigns. This makes everything unfair, and invalidates the equality that the Internet was meant to create. There is already a universal basis for social media timelines and algorithms, it's the one they started out with when they were trying to become important; A time line based on when content was posted, equal visibility for all users, conservative ad placement without pop-ups, User Interfaces based on functionality first, thorough testing of releases prior to updates, reading feedback from users before addressing stakeholder concerns... And most importantly "Not Becoming Evil" in the process.
jlarocco 7y ago
> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. But the algorithms are already being "gamed and abused" - that's why Google keeps changing them - so in the worst case revealing the algorithms is no different than our current situation. The advantage of opening the algorithms is that everybody can see and understand how the algorithms might be gamed, so they can look out for sites and other actors gaming them. Keeping the algorithms secret is a way for them to play stupid and shirk responsibility, and lets them do their own shady things without oversight.

by jasode 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

I don't see why the gaming problem you describe matters in anything but the absolute shortest term. If algorithms are gamed they'll have to be modified to be resistant to gaming in order to deliver effective results. As the game of cat and mouse goes on it would result in us refining our algorithms to the point where they actually measure what we want rather than an approximation of what we want. Eventually "gaming the algorithms" would be the same as producing high quality content. Yes refining algorithms to that point would be hard work but it would get figured out.

jasode 7y ago
>If algorithms are gamed they'll have to be modified to be resistant to gaming As far as I know, nobody in computer science has come up with a ranking algorithm that can't be gamed to render the algorithm useless. (Unless the so-called algorithm is a trivial case such as the runner with the fastest time across the finish line is the "winner" of the race.) For a multi-criteria algorithm that approximates a hazy idea like "video quality" that uses various signals as proxies for quality, the algorithm's exact source code must be kept a secret. Yes, you can publicize broad outlines of what the algorithm does but you can't reveal the actual code (or the actual machine learning weights, etc). Yes, an algorithm like a SHA256 hash source code can be made transparently public and still can't be "abused" such that a bad actor can make the string "DEADBEEF" appear anywhere they want in the output hash. This class of algorithm behaves differently than ranking/recommendation algorithms.

eloff 7y ago

As someone else pointed out, tax laws are public (like all laws) and we don't specifically think it's worthwhile keeping them secret to avoid gaming the system. So I don't buy that argument off hand. Plus people are already gaming the system, it's just the knowledge to do so is imperfect and unfairly distributed. Leveling the playing field there puts more focus on making the algorithm less vulnerable in the first place instead of effectively relying on security through obscurity.

jsonne 7y ago

"That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused." This happens without it being public knowledge and is commonly referred to as SEO. Keeping the black box a block box hurts more than helps because the privileged few that do have it figured out completely control the narrative. In addition a publicly published algo helps re-introduce competition. I see it as no different than food products being required to list ingredients.

jasode 7y ago
>This happens without it being public knowledge and is commonly referred to as SEO. I'm not claiming that absolutely zero gaming is possible. For all the successes that the SEO industry achieves, it's still a version of the proverbial blind men (SEO experts) feeling different parts of a giant elephant (the opaque Google algorithm). That's why SEO practitioners still get blindsided by new search engine changes by Google.

denzil_correa 7y ago

> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. That's the paradox or contradiction: for the algorithms to be effective, they have to be kept a secret to prevent gaming. What level of algorithmic transparency can one achieve without sacrificing gaming? I ask this question because this is a common discussion for many aspects in our society. For example, we have designed laws over 100s of years despite the knowledge that they can be prone to gaming. The existence of gaming itself is not a good enough reason to have ZERO algorithmic transparency.

tunesmith 7y ago

It's not always true that an algorithm for influencing behavior has to be secret to be effective. I remember reading about "proper scoring rules" where the only way to maximize your score is to behave in the desired way. The real flaw here is that we're defining valuable content in terms of popularity.

gregw134 7y ago

Google already publishes 150+ pages of rater guidelines (i.e. what it's looking for in a site): https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jlokier 7y ago

> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. That's an important consideration, but I don't think it is known to be inevitable. It seems like a worthy research goal, to develop algorithms which are not gameable (in defined ways) despite knowing the algorithms. Consider how publishing good encryption algorithms does not render the encryption breakable. And the research being done now on Differential Privacy techniques, to allow large scale data collection from individuals without compromising individual privacy. I suspect there is an analogous class of algorithms that resist being gamed in ways that matter. Possibly requiring that the deployed algorithm depend on a secret key or random seed, but that would be fine as long as the secret does not encode another algorithm.

winternett 7y ago

Algorithms get gamed by either the public or by the shareholder-based companies that create them... Companies are the LEAST dependable ones to create truly uncorrupt algorithms for social media. They adjust everything to drive sales, to drive profit, to drive ad revenue, because year over year shareholders expect profit growth. Creating social media presence used to be fair, but now as a content creator, the ONLY way to get noticed is to game the system. Rich people and companies prevail against algorithms because they can hire companies to boost their views, and to create followers, and to create massive campaigns. This makes everything unfair, and invalidates the equality that the Internet was meant to create. There is already a universal basis for social media timelines and algorithms, it's the one they started out with when they were trying to become important; A time line based on when content was posted, equal visibility for all users, conservative ad placement without pop-ups, User Interfaces based on functionality first, thorough testing of releases prior to updates, reading feedback from users before addressing stakeholder concerns... And most importantly "Not Becoming Evil" in the process.

jlarocco 7y ago

> That would hurt society more than help because once the algorithms are public, the code's inner workings can then be gamed and abused. But the algorithms are already being "gamed and abused" - that's why Google keeps changing them - so in the worst case revealing the algorithms is no different than our current situation. The advantage of opening the algorithms is that everybody can see and understand how the algorithms might be gamed, so they can look out for sites and other actors gaming them. Keeping the algorithms secret is a way for them to play stupid and shirk responsibility, and lets them do their own shady things without oversight.