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This needs to be more understood by the population. Our world-destroying-AI paperclip maximizer is here. It's called a "news feed". The thing that gets the mo

This needs to be more understood by the population. Our world-destroying-AI paperclip maximizer is here. It's called a "news feed". The thing that gets the most clicks is outrage, as the AI has discovered. We're setting people against each-other in a more and more efficient fashion. The result has been clear since the Arab Spring. Good things don't come from helping people hate each-other in the most efficient way possible. Banning AI-driven-click-maximizing news feeds would be a healthy start. Right now, they're doing serious damage to our world.

meowface 6y ago
We are, but the blame has to be shared, too. In many cases the algorithm is being reinforced by your and everyone's actions. It may not even necessarily be specifically trying to prioritize polarizing content: that just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference. I've used YouTube for many hours per day for several years. I've almost never seen a single thing appear on my home page that was polarizing or even clickbaity. The very rare times I do (always after I watch something that's kind of adjacent), I just click "Not interested" and I never see it or anything like it again. It's done a pretty good job of predicting what I would and wouldn't be interested in. Same with Twitter. I just unfollow anyone I find tweeting polarizing or charged things. My Twitter feed looks pretty close to the HN front page. Many people crave these things, whether they want to or even realize it. I think it's going to be this way for a very long time.
- cageface 6y ago
  Sorry but this is a very naive view of human psychology. The Social Dilemma on Netflix does a good job of explaining why asking people to just exert more willpower is not the solution.
  - meowface 6y ago
    Maybe it is. I just am repulsed by stuff like that and try to get it out of my sight whenever possible. I figure most of HN is the same way. It pretty much never appears on any of my feeds, since I don't hesitate to click the "Not interested" button on the rare occasions it appears. I'll watch that film, though.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      The new AI is different than the algorithms of old. The old algorithms are one size fits all and everyone get exactly the same schlock. The new AI knows you individually and shows you as an individual the kinds of things that you are most likely to engage with. It doesn't matter at all if the kinds of things you as an individual are more likely to engage with have less inflammatory headlines. The system is still doing the same thing to you as it's doing to everyone else.
      - meowface 6y ago
        Right. But that was exactly what I was saying in my initial post (above my previous reply).
- licebmi__at__ 6y ago
  That is, until you click even accidentally on a single outrage clickbait video, then youtube would immediately suggest at least 20 other videoa of the same kind and you have to click “not interested” to videos for several weeks until your feed is sane again. And IME, it doesn’t even have to be videos watched by most of the people, but a subset of “power users” who binge certain kind of videos are over represented on the recommendation engine.
  - meowface 6y ago
    >That is, until you click even accidentally on a single outrage clickbait video, then youtube would immediately suggest at least 20 other videoa of the same kind and you have to click “not interested” to videos for several weeks until your feed is sane again. For me it takes a single round of a few "Not interested" clicks. Definitely not weeks, or even days.
- coffeefirst 6y ago
  No, it’s being driven by the lowest common denominator for engagement, which is distinct from personal preferences. For a self-contained example, spam in large Facebook groups always rises to the top, because many people comment asking it to be deleted, causing the algorithm to show it to more people, some of which comment, until a moderator finally kills the post. These kinds of side effects do not happen in a voting based system or a straight chronological feed.
  - meowface 6y ago
    For Facebook groups, yes, this is a big problem. That's one reason why I don't use Facebook. For one's personal feed, I don't think the same issue necessarily applies.
- nikitaga 6y ago
  > just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference No, it's the content that other people engage with. Disregarding the whole "engagement is a good metric of how much you want to see something" bullshit, if you served me food based on what other people like to eat, it would be a weird mix of gluten free vegan stuff, and also coke, pizza and doritos. I don't want any of that shit. I'm not "many people". I don't need to be fed the same irrelevant garbage as them. But the only way to achieve that is to unfollow everyone and not get many useful updates. Which is what I'm doing, but it's just barely useful, and the popular crap still seeps in at every opportunity.
  - r_c_a_d 6y ago
    Nobody likes to eat gluten-free stuff; unfortunately, some people like me have to eat it.
  - meowface 6y ago
    That just hasn't been my experience with Twitter or YouTube. (I don't use Facebook or other things.) I agree that would be very annoying if it happened to me, but for some reason it just doesn't seem to. I probably watch so many videos that it's just picked up my preferences well. I do want to see what other videos are watched by large numbers of people who've watched things I've already watched. That's how I discover new and interesting things. I've found tons of great content that way, and pretty much no clickbaity or LCD / popular crap seeps in (maybe once every few months, but the "Not interested" immediately takes care of it). I don't know how common my experience is.
- rapnie 6y ago
  Joe Edelman wrote a nice article about algorithms that are driven by metrics: "This talk is about metrics and measurement: about how metrics affect the structure of organizations and societies, how they change the economy, how we’re doing them wrong, and how we could do them right." https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizing-d11e648eb56f https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizin...
082349872349872 6y ago
Yugoslavia was well before the Arab Spring. Of course, that was broadcast, not clicks, but outrage was stoked. (In Lonnie Athens' theory of violentisation, there's a step where the to-become-radically-violent says to themselves, "I'll become the biggest badass and this will never happen to me again." Milošević has a famous TV speech where, after a spot of "spontaneous violence", he tells ethnic serbs he isn't going to let them be beaten anymore.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_gcotWY3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_gcotWY3Y
- sn41 6y ago
  Yes, this is something that I have realised of late. Very few people except maybe the most psychopathic, start by believing that they are evil. Most of us believe that we are being victimised. Maybe I am an unemployed youth, outraged at the fact that some minority got a job while I am unemployed. I completely ignore the fact that I am not as qualified as the other person and comfort myself with some victimhood myth. These minor grievances are later amplified by demagogues. The reaction to this perceived victimisation is so out of proportion that the initial grievance looks minuscule in retrospect. The main difference these days is that we don't need a visible demagogue. The various "engagement algorithms" play the role of an echo chamber which sends opinions into a positive feedback loop until it enters the regime of social collapse.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio. You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes. Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to the deaths of millions.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    And social media is actually less dangerous in this regard then past media like radio and books, because it makes it easy to comment in a way that reaches the consumers of the original media. You can run a radio channel where you rail against ethnic prejudice, but the listeners of radio rwanda are unlikely to listen to your channel. You can write a book refuting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" but the readers of the original are unlikely to read your book. Social media is different. If someone incites hatred against ethnic groups on facebook you can respond and reach the readers of the original post.

meowface 6y ago

We are, but the blame has to be shared, too. In many cases the algorithm is being reinforced by your and everyone's actions. It may not even necessarily be specifically trying to prioritize polarizing content: that just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference. I've used YouTube for many hours per day for several years. I've almost never seen a single thing appear on my home page that was polarizing or even clickbaity. The very rare times I do (always after I watch something that's kind of adjacent), I just click "Not interested" and I never see it or anything like it again. It's done a pretty good job of predicting what I would and wouldn't be interested in. Same with Twitter. I just unfollow anyone I find tweeting polarizing or charged things. My Twitter feed looks pretty close to the HN front page. Many people crave these things, whether they want to or even realize it. I think it's going to be this way for a very long time.

cageface 6y ago
Sorry but this is a very naive view of human psychology. The Social Dilemma on Netflix does a good job of explaining why asking people to just exert more willpower is not the solution.
- meowface 6y ago
  Maybe it is. I just am repulsed by stuff like that and try to get it out of my sight whenever possible. I figure most of HN is the same way. It pretty much never appears on any of my feeds, since I don't hesitate to click the "Not interested" button on the rare occasions it appears. I'll watch that film, though.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    The new AI is different than the algorithms of old. The old algorithms are one size fits all and everyone get exactly the same schlock. The new AI knows you individually and shows you as an individual the kinds of things that you are most likely to engage with. It doesn't matter at all if the kinds of things you as an individual are more likely to engage with have less inflammatory headlines. The system is still doing the same thing to you as it's doing to everyone else.
    - meowface 6y ago
      Right. But that was exactly what I was saying in my initial post (above my previous reply).
licebmi__at__ 6y ago
That is, until you click even accidentally on a single outrage clickbait video, then youtube would immediately suggest at least 20 other videoa of the same kind and you have to click “not interested” to videos for several weeks until your feed is sane again. And IME, it doesn’t even have to be videos watched by most of the people, but a subset of “power users” who binge certain kind of videos are over represented on the recommendation engine.
- meowface 6y ago
  >That is, until you click even accidentally on a single outrage clickbait video, then youtube would immediately suggest at least 20 other videoa of the same kind and you have to click “not interested” to videos for several weeks until your feed is sane again. For me it takes a single round of a few "Not interested" clicks. Definitely not weeks, or even days.
coffeefirst 6y ago
No, it’s being driven by the lowest common denominator for engagement, which is distinct from personal preferences. For a self-contained example, spam in large Facebook groups always rises to the top, because many people comment asking it to be deleted, causing the algorithm to show it to more people, some of which comment, until a moderator finally kills the post. These kinds of side effects do not happen in a voting based system or a straight chronological feed.
- meowface 6y ago
  For Facebook groups, yes, this is a big problem. That's one reason why I don't use Facebook. For one's personal feed, I don't think the same issue necessarily applies.
nikitaga 6y ago
> just might be the content you engage with the most, and the algorithm blindly follows your whims and preference No, it's the content that other people engage with. Disregarding the whole "engagement is a good metric of how much you want to see something" bullshit, if you served me food based on what other people like to eat, it would be a weird mix of gluten free vegan stuff, and also coke, pizza and doritos. I don't want any of that shit. I'm not "many people". I don't need to be fed the same irrelevant garbage as them. But the only way to achieve that is to unfollow everyone and not get many useful updates. Which is what I'm doing, but it's just barely useful, and the popular crap still seeps in at every opportunity.
- r_c_a_d 6y ago
  Nobody likes to eat gluten-free stuff; unfortunately, some people like me have to eat it.
- meowface 6y ago
  That just hasn't been my experience with Twitter or YouTube. (I don't use Facebook or other things.) I agree that would be very annoying if it happened to me, but for some reason it just doesn't seem to. I probably watch so many videos that it's just picked up my preferences well. I do want to see what other videos are watched by large numbers of people who've watched things I've already watched. That's how I discover new and interesting things. I've found tons of great content that way, and pretty much no clickbaity or LCD / popular crap seeps in (maybe once every few months, but the "Not interested" immediately takes care of it). I don't know how common my experience is.
rapnie 6y ago
Joe Edelman wrote a nice article about algorithms that are driven by metrics: "This talk is about metrics and measurement: about how metrics affect the structure of organizations and societies, how they change the economy, how we’re doing them wrong, and how we could do them right." https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizing-d11e648eb56f https://medium.com/what-to-build/is-anything-worth-maximizin...

082349872349872 6y ago

Yugoslavia was well before the Arab Spring. Of course, that was broadcast, not clicks, but outrage was stoked. (In Lonnie Athens' theory of violentisation, there's a step where the to-become-radically-violent says to themselves, "I'll become the biggest badass and this will never happen to me again." Milošević has a famous TV speech where, after a spot of "spontaneous violence", he tells ethnic serbs he isn't going to let them be beaten anymore.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_gcotWY3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_gcotWY3Y

sn41 6y ago
Yes, this is something that I have realised of late. Very few people except maybe the most psychopathic, start by believing that they are evil. Most of us believe that we are being victimised. Maybe I am an unemployed youth, outraged at the fact that some minority got a job while I am unemployed. I completely ignore the fact that I am not as qualified as the other person and comfort myself with some victimhood myth. These minor grievances are later amplified by demagogues. The reaction to this perceived victimisation is so out of proportion that the initial grievance looks minuscule in retrospect. The main difference these days is that we don't need a visible demagogue. The various "engagement algorithms" play the role of an echo chamber which sends opinions into a positive feedback loop until it enters the regime of social collapse.
pjc50 6y ago
Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio. You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes. Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to the deaths of millions.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  And social media is actually less dangerous in this regard then past media like radio and books, because it makes it easy to comment in a way that reaches the consumers of the original media. You can run a radio channel where you rail against ethnic prejudice, but the listeners of radio rwanda are unlikely to listen to your channel. You can write a book refuting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" but the readers of the original are unlikely to read your book. Social media is different. If someone incites hatred against ethnic groups on facebook you can respond and reach the readers of the original post.