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> THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS Everyone thinks this problem is really annoying, but to me it's a good sign - it indicates the curre

> THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS Everyone thinks this problem is really annoying, but to me it's a good sign - it indicates the current technical capabilities on using and abusing personal information is still limited, the predicted machine learning apocalypse is not here yet. In other words: despite the large quantity of personal information collected by advertisers, they still cannot exploit it efficiently enough, so far all they can do mostly is showing you the same things over and over - advertisers are still unable to develop a perfectly manipulative algorithm that makes you buy things (edit: or they have it, but it's still not found in wider deployment). Effectiveness of targeted ads directly translates to effectiveness of mass surveillance. Perhaps we should enjoy the useless shopping recommendations from Amazon for now. When every single shopping recommendations made by the algorithm is the thing you always wanted (coming soon!), you'll know the cyberpunk dystopia is officially here. This point of view also reconciles the two different opinions on machine learning in the tech community. The first person tells you that it's nothing but overhyped marketing, while it has some specialized uses, but everything is exaggerated as "AI" to get money from VCs, and in many areas, it's effectiveness is just too limited. The second person warns you that collecting personal information at an industrial scale is extremely dangerous, with the recent progress on "AI", they can use your data against you in ways never possible before. These two are not a contradiction: The first view is where we were previously, and the next view is where we are going to.

highland586 6y ago
> it indicates the current technical capabilities on using and abusing personal information is still limited Does it really though? I would expect a successfully manipulative algorithm to be much more subtle than this; just because we don't notice it, doesn't mean it's not there.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  I don't deny its existence (in conference papers, in labs, in black projects by government and corporations, or even in a tiny startup company). I'm just saying so far it's not mature enough to be widely deployed on large platforms, like Amazon's banner ads.
- retSava 6y ago
  Since events like this famous case, where Walmart outed a teenage girl pregnancy, it's well-known they mix in some "weird" or irrelevant things to give a sense of plausible deniability. "oh, pregger testers, haha, how weird they can be <nervous laughter>". https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
  - bob29 6y ago
    This was Target not Walmart and I say that not to nitpick but rather highlight that arguably Walmart is somewhat an upper tier tech company. If this is what Target does in 2012, Amazon in 2020 not only inserts plausible deniability to optimize for lack-of-creepiness factor. They're probably running AI bots on forums and social media injecting seamless product placement in commentary you see in your browser.
- nearbuy 6y ago
  If we observe that the targeted advertising doesn't seem all that good, it's a bit of a leap to suspect there's actually a great algorithm that's so subtly manipulative we don't notice it. By Occam's razor, the algorithm is probably just showing too many vacuums because it's not that good.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
What if they are not aiming for "efficiency" in the same sense as you are describing it. What looks grossly inefficient to us may actually meet the minimum level of "efficiency" these "entrepreneurs" of online advertising need to generate a return and declare their "business" a success. How effective is spam? From the perspective of the spammer, it's effective enough. In both cases, these forms of "business" are certainly effective in annoying a large number of people, a tradeoff the operators apparently deem worthy of making.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Possible. It's why I said, > advertisers are still unable to develop a perfectly manipulative algorithm that makes you buy things (edit: or they have it, but it's still not found in wider deployment). Perhaps the expensive processor time or R&D just doesn't worth it... Yet (But it's coming soon?).
throwaway2245 6y ago
> but to me it's a good sign - it indicates the current technical capabilities on using and abusing personal information is still limited I don't think it is a good sign. I think it shows that, even if your personal information is quietly being abused, individual businesses will still prioritise spamming you. So, even if you willingly give up your personal information in exchange for personalised ads, you will never see the claimed benefit to you. One side of the contract is broken.
- jariel 6y ago
  "you will never see the claimed benefit to you" Targetted ads are considerably more effective, even if they are annoying. When you 'buy' something, generally you get the 'benefit' of the surplus. The ads very effectiveness is a rough measure of their economic benefit, even to you. How we 'emotional feel' about ads that seem to track is is not really a measure of that. It's just annoying.
Majromax 6y ago
> Effectiveness of targeted ads directly translates to effectiveness of mass surveillance. Assuming you're correct about the technical points of efficacy, we can still turn this around as a social problem and hypothesize that the willingness to use unproven, annoying targeted ads directly correlates to the willingness to use intrusive mass surveillance. You bought a vacuum here are more vacuums might directly translate to you attended a protest so you're a permanent malcontent. Worse yet, the "metrics" of social monitoring aren't as black-and-white as future purchases, so badly-used surveillance might falsely think itself useful simply through confirmation biases.
amelius 6y ago
> but to me it's a good sign Or ... perhaps they do this selectively to quiet the informed few :)
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
Well, advertisers don't really want to spy on you and control your mind. What they want are stable, well-defined target audiences with well-known statistical properties and control groups. Basically, applied sociology. They can't get that directly with the current state of the Internet, so they have to rely on hacks.
- benlivengood 6y ago
  > Well, advertisers don't really want to spy on you and control your mind. What they want are stable, well-defined target audiences with well-known statistical properties and control groups. What we're evolving is predators of human state of mind. For every well-understood target audience there is an optimal revenue extraction method. With more data new sub-audiences appear, allowing experiments to find even more effective advertising for maximizing revenue extraction in those subgroups. A huge fraction of advertising is nothing more than gaslighting us into believing we have a need or desire for a product or service. The other fraction is exploiting biases in our brains to influence our purchasing decisions toward particular brands or markets.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    No. We don't live in an Isaac Asimov novel. Hari Seldon doesn't exists. Advertisers want reproducible results backed by science and numbers. And the only way to get that today is with old-fashioned statistics - normal distrubutions, laws of large numbers and carefully controlled sample selection processes. Nowhere here does the sci-fi of "mind control" factor.

highland586 6y ago

> it indicates the current technical capabilities on using and abusing personal information is still limited Does it really though? I would expect a successfully manipulative algorithm to be much more subtle than this; just because we don't notice it, doesn't mean it's not there.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago
I don't deny its existence (in conference papers, in labs, in black projects by government and corporations, or even in a tiny startup company). I'm just saying so far it's not mature enough to be widely deployed on large platforms, like Amazon's banner ads.
retSava 6y ago
Since events like this famous case, where Walmart outed a teenage girl pregnancy, it's well-known they mix in some "weird" or irrelevant things to give a sense of plausible deniability. "oh, pregger testers, haha, how weird they can be <nervous laughter>". https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
- bob29 6y ago
  This was Target not Walmart and I say that not to nitpick but rather highlight that arguably Walmart is somewhat an upper tier tech company. If this is what Target does in 2012, Amazon in 2020 not only inserts plausible deniability to optimize for lack-of-creepiness factor. They're probably running AI bots on forums and social media injecting seamless product placement in commentary you see in your browser.
nearbuy 6y ago
If we observe that the targeted advertising doesn't seem all that good, it's a bit of a leap to suspect there's actually a great algorithm that's so subtly manipulative we don't notice it. By Occam's razor, the algorithm is probably just showing too many vacuums because it's not that good.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

What if they are not aiming for "efficiency" in the same sense as you are describing it. What looks grossly inefficient to us may actually meet the minimum level of "efficiency" these "entrepreneurs" of online advertising need to generate a return and declare their "business" a success. How effective is spam? From the perspective of the spammer, it's effective enough. In both cases, these forms of "business" are certainly effective in annoying a large number of people, a tradeoff the operators apparently deem worthy of making.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Possible. It's why I said, > advertisers are still unable to develop a perfectly manipulative algorithm that makes you buy things (edit: or they have it, but it's still not found in wider deployment). Perhaps the expensive processor time or R&D just doesn't worth it... Yet (But it's coming soon?).

throwaway2245 6y ago

> but to me it's a good sign - it indicates the current technical capabilities on using and abusing personal information is still limited I don't think it is a good sign. I think it shows that, even if your personal information is quietly being abused, individual businesses will still prioritise spamming you. So, even if you willingly give up your personal information in exchange for personalised ads, you will never see the claimed benefit to you. One side of the contract is broken.

jariel 6y ago
"you will never see the claimed benefit to you" Targetted ads are considerably more effective, even if they are annoying. When you 'buy' something, generally you get the 'benefit' of the surplus. The ads very effectiveness is a rough measure of their economic benefit, even to you. How we 'emotional feel' about ads that seem to track is is not really a measure of that. It's just annoying.

Majromax 6y ago

> Effectiveness of targeted ads directly translates to effectiveness of mass surveillance. Assuming you're correct about the technical points of efficacy, we can still turn this around as a social problem and hypothesize that the willingness to use unproven, annoying targeted ads directly correlates to the willingness to use intrusive mass surveillance. You bought a vacuum here are more vacuums might directly translate to you attended a protest so you're a permanent malcontent. Worse yet, the "metrics" of social monitoring aren't as black-and-white as future purchases, so badly-used surveillance might falsely think itself useful simply through confirmation biases.

amelius 6y ago

> but to me it's a good sign Or ... perhaps they do this selectively to quiet the informed few :)

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

Well, advertisers don't really want to spy on you and control your mind. What they want are stable, well-defined target audiences with well-known statistical properties and control groups. Basically, applied sociology. They can't get that directly with the current state of the Internet, so they have to rely on hacks.

benlivengood 6y ago
> Well, advertisers don't really want to spy on you and control your mind. What they want are stable, well-defined target audiences with well-known statistical properties and control groups. What we're evolving is predators of human state of mind. For every well-understood target audience there is an optimal revenue extraction method. With more data new sub-audiences appear, allowing experiments to find even more effective advertising for maximizing revenue extraction in those subgroups. A huge fraction of advertising is nothing more than gaslighting us into believing we have a need or desire for a product or service. The other fraction is exploiting biases in our brains to influence our purchasing decisions toward particular brands or markets.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  No. We don't live in an Isaac Asimov novel. Hari Seldon doesn't exists. Advertisers want reproducible results backed by science and numbers. And the only way to get that today is with old-fashioned statistics - normal distrubutions, laws of large numbers and carefully controlled sample selection processes. Nowhere here does the sci-fi of "mind control" factor.