4 ms·

Measuring Algorithmically Infused Societies

35 points by tchalla 5y ago

psboody 5y ago
I have a bad feeling by the time computational social scientists or whoever work anything out algos will suck society dry. I have been in too many meetings where no one cares. Each time its the same story - ya the data is showing this random group of people over here are hooked like crazy, dont worry about why and what effects its having on them just keep them hooked. Its like a big trap. Once you walk in there is no exit. The people who push back or try alternatives all get politically side lined. And we end up with cluelessly or crazy people in charge.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  If it remains a "free" (perhaps monopolized but mostly unregulated) market, we can expect that behavior to continue. Not everyone in society seems to be equally vulnerable to those algorithms. We might reasonably expect a Darwinian loss of populations who are. More hopefulñy, at least some people are able to outgrow such addictions.
troelsSteegin 5y ago
See the other big picture 'setting the agenda' perspective, co-published and similarly paywalled: "Integrating explanation and prediction in computational social science" at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03659-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03659-0 . Authors for both are high profile, I am guessing these are aggregates of position papers for a conference panel. Both are part of a Nature Computational Social Science special, https://www.nature.com/collections/cadaddgige https://www.nature.com/collections/cadaddgige , in part covering the network science conference Networks21, https://networks2021.net/ https://networks2021.net/ .
temp8964 5y ago
Never heard of "computational social scientists" before. Seems to be CS people working on social issues. The reference list seems to be exclusively CS, no social science at all. Maybe they should just call themselves computer scientists.
- Anon84 5y ago
  (former) computational social scientist here... This particular bunch (I know several of the authors personally) are a bit more CS oriented, but CSS people do run the gamut from Theoretical/Computational Physicists (like yours truly) to CS and more traditional Social Science types. Essentially, and this is what brought me the field, we were doing Data Science before such a thing had a name and trying to answer behavioral/social questions using large (at least for the time) datasets along with some CS/ML skills. Check out my google scholar to see the kind of stuff we played with https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rtKaL18AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rtKaL18AAAAJ&hl=en...
  - andreskytt 5y ago
    This is great stuff! I think I’ll be in touch. I’ve come from systems perspective to social sciences and have found it tremendously hard to gain traction - the data mindset is just so different. Finally got some things published but basically gave up as nobody seemed to care. Would love to pick some complexity related research back up as a hobby

35 points by tchalla 5y ago

I have a bad feeling by the time computational social scientists or whoever work anything out algos will suck society dry. I have been in too many meetings where no one cares. Each time its the same story - ya the data is showing this random group of people over here are hooked like crazy, dont worry about why and what effects its having on them just keep them hooked. Its like a big trap. Once you walk in there is no exit. The people who push back or try alternatives all get politically side lined. And we end up with cluelessly or crazy people in charge.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago
If it remains a "free" (perhaps monopolized but mostly unregulated) market, we can expect that behavior to continue. Not everyone in society seems to be equally vulnerable to those algorithms. We might reasonably expect a Darwinian loss of populations who are. More hopefulñy, at least some people are able to outgrow such addictions.

troelsSteegin 5y ago

See the other big picture 'setting the agenda' perspective, co-published and similarly paywalled: "Integrating explanation and prediction in computational social science" at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03659-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03659-0 . Authors for both are high profile, I am guessing these are aggregates of position papers for a conference panel. Both are part of a Nature Computational Social Science special, https://www.nature.com/collections/cadaddgige https://www.nature.com/collections/cadaddgige , in part covering the network science conference Networks21, https://networks2021.net/ https://networks2021.net/ .

temp8964 5y ago

Never heard of "computational social scientists" before. Seems to be CS people working on social issues. The reference list seems to be exclusively CS, no social science at all. Maybe they should just call themselves computer scientists.

Anon84 5y ago
(former) computational social scientist here... This particular bunch (I know several of the authors personally) are a bit more CS oriented, but CSS people do run the gamut from Theoretical/Computational Physicists (like yours truly) to CS and more traditional Social Science types. Essentially, and this is what brought me the field, we were doing Data Science before such a thing had a name and trying to answer behavioral/social questions using large (at least for the time) datasets along with some CS/ML skills. Check out my google scholar to see the kind of stuff we played with https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rtKaL18AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rtKaL18AAAAJ&hl=en...
- andreskytt 5y ago
  This is great stuff! I think I’ll be in touch. I’ve come from systems perspective to social sciences and have found it tremendously hard to gain traction - the data mindset is just so different. Finally got some things published but basically gave up as nobody seemed to care. Would love to pick some complexity related research back up as a hobby