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As you say, explaining the intracicies of the algorithm is a fools errand. I guess it is more reasonable if you turn it around: these changes have drastic impac
by zmmmmm 6y ago
As you say, explaining the intracicies of the algorithm is a fools errand. I guess it is more reasonable if you turn it around: these changes have drastic impact on businesses, so there is a duty to behave responsibly in administering them.
If Google really has no idea what the impact of a change will be then it is fairly irresponsible to make that change given the real world harm it can cause. But I suspect in general it does have at least a reasonable idea what the effect of changes will be - that is why it is making them.
So the more reasonable version of this is that they need to submit human interpretable descriptions of the effect of changes based on reasonable evidence and validation of their models.
- not2b 6y agoIn many cases they (Google) don't know the impact of changes until they try deploying the changes, and there's ML in the picture, not just algorithms. As I understand it, they often run tests that expose the change to a limited subset of users first.
- xg15 6y agoYes, but they don't just do random stuff. They make changes with the intention to adjust the experience in certain ways, so making those intentions public is important.
- visarga 6y agoMonitoring search engine and social network ranking and filtering updates should be more efficient than complaining about biased parrots (language models). This is a tip to certain ethics researchers who are raising scandals about search bias, but not in the right place - go in the field, check the fucking feeds, leave your abstract ethical tower and measure the reality.
- xg15 6y agoI'm sorry, but this post sounds pretty abstract itself. What exactly do you propose they should do?
- visarga 6y agoInstead of trying to argue the gender bias in "doctor - man + woman == nurse" (abstract ethical argument) they should check the search results for bias (concrete, measured effect).