7 ms·

Sometimes I dream of a Facebook machine; e.g. the eerily creepy recommender for your next best action, but than with an objective function not to optimise the r

Sometimes I dream of a Facebook machine; e.g. the eerily creepy recommender for your next best action, but than with an objective function not to optimise the recommenders revenue (by being as effective ad seller as possible) but rather changing the objective function to optimise for health, wellbeing and happiness. Now surely it is far from trivial to define these, but atleast you can make a start somewhere: - You could factor in the cost for environment per each recommendation and have that drive down the score of a recommendation: I think the "fast-fashion" idiotic anti-environmental trends would die out fast than. - You could factor in, based on some overarching theme of ethos, that each person needs to eat healthy and recommend the right healhty food at the right time; instead of recommending the next best McDonalds burger to an already obese person. - Take into consideration, based on studies, what actual heatlhy behaviour looks like, and try to fit that to a person - with respect to their actual persona and state of health (which are obviously known already given that each bit of you is pretty much on the street already) I could go on, but in truth, a personal recommender that would know me better than I even would, and would optimise towards happiness and greatness, instead of # shit sold like it currently is, would already be a tremendous improvement. Surely, this idea is also far from original, but I hope that we someday get to such a thing. Atleast a thing that stops recommending environmentally destructive behaviours like buying so much stuff I don't really need.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
Unfortunately I think we live in a society where the people who could use this the most are the people least able to afford the costs of such a service.
rumblerock 5y ago
I'm certainly wish this were possible, and people who left would probably go back to the platform if it reformed itself in this direction. But as the years go on all I see are more and more catastrophic impacts from short term thinking and near term profit generation, whether it's Facebook, climate, VC-funded startups or the current supply chain crisis. Perhaps the public consciousness around the unhealthy design of existing social media is approaching a point where a new Facebook-like social network could actually achieve a critical mass of users. On the order of years I think it'll happen (like rates of smoking cigarettes), but how long that will be who knows. I can only hope it comes in the next few years as I fear the destructive ripple effects through culture and society are only getting worse.
istorical 5y ago
I find it absolutely painful that our recommender ML based content discovery streams like YouTube and Tiktok and Instagram don't have multiple 'hats' you can put on and take off, in the sense of saying 'hey TikTok, I'm feeling frisky, feel free to send me those thirst trap videos now', but then 30 minutes later you can say 'OK TikTok, I know I watched a bunch of those dancing videos, but can you send me the educational stuff now'. Ditto IG, YouTube etc. Like 'hey YouTube, engage education mode', 'hey YouTube, engage self-improvement mode', 'hey YouTube, I just wanna relax and laugh'. I know that there are categories, even auto-generated categories on YouTube, but they aren't that great or all encompassing. My biggest critique of present personalized ML content streams is that there's no two-way communication. I can't tell IG that yes I wanna see big booties right now, but no I don't want to see them five hours from now. Or I want to see aquaponics right now since I'm on a learning binge, but later tonight I don't need more technology and science, I just need to laugh and unwind. Our actions, our content consumption, is not allowed to be one and done. Every move you make is seen as a signal to the algorithm that you want more of that all the time. The closest thing we have is incognito mode, or maintaining multiple accounts for different purposes. But why can't you look at an ex on instagram one time without them showing you that person everytime you open the app for 5 years. It's really toxic and unsustainable that all of your actions are seen as 'yes, please more of this all the time'.
- jorpal 5y ago
  Anyone remember StumbleUpon? You could easily edit your interests and get different types of content. It was the pinnacle.
- clairity 5y ago
  > "...in the sense of saying 'hey TikTok, I'm feeling frisky, feel free to send me those thirst trap videos now'..." i once pitched this type of user experience (for the general case, not tiktok, which didn't exist at the time) at a hackathon competition, and it was popular enough then to win us some free stuff. the demo we hacked together was very rudimentary, but had we gotten a little further along with a proof of concept before falling apart, who knows what might have happened... the biggest challenge was actually licensing costs and rights management, not the recommendation engine (though that was challenging too).
mertd 5y ago
> changing the objective function to optimise for health, wellbeing and happiness. Whose? Individual or group wellbeing? Optimizing for one can lead to very suboptimal outcomes for the other.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  This feels like the argument about weather the self-driving car should hit two grandmas or the guy in the car. The discussion is not productive, because the answer that saves the most people is to get self-driving cars on the streets as soon as possible. As for the answer to your question, just go for best wellbeing for the individual. Happier, healthier, less obese, fitter, non-smoking people are also a net benefit to society. Assuming the technology works at all.
dado3212 5y ago
FB has gotten roasted for doing emotional manipulation in the past: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/?sh=4ff3b937197c https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook.... Not confident that the company trying to specifically target emotions (even ostensibly happiness) would be taken that well.
- hetspookjee 5y ago
  I do not believe Facebook as a company would be possible in generating such a thing. And if they could I can only be cynical about it. I rather put my faith in the open source community where people tinker on their own algorithms, and provide their own data. I am sure the first initiatives are already on their way regarding personal recommenders. But I don’t know any. If anyone does, please recommend :)
- Frost1x 5y ago
  I'm not sure it would matter. The general population that compose Facebooks revenue stream don't seem to care. We keep hinting at these ethical conundrums that invisibly regulate massive businesses when they simply don't. It's not just tech, it's big businesses in general. The ethics only matter if a large enough population of the consumer and product base both care and act. Only demand matters and if demand doesn't care or you can manipulate the demand not to care, you can get away with about anything that isn't explicitly illegal. I suspected Facebook does the work you referenced but I had no idea they actually did and had any flack about it. I'd like to think I'm a fairly tech savvy and an informed consumer (especially around issues like this), maybe I'm not, but if I am, what hope do you have of the general population caring when they aren't even aware as a first hurdle before the other massive hurdles of getting them to care enough to act. The fact is that this type of work isn't regulated. Funding agencies regulate human subject work for your typical public funded research work and require a lot of informed consent. The leverage they use is that should you violate these terms, you may have current and future funding pulled, may be black listed across multiple agencies, and may find it difficult to pursue any career in research in the future involving human subjects. There are lots of disincentives not do this on the premise of manipulating your resources. Meanwhile, entities like Facebook have piles of such resources and have a vested interest in all sorts of this questionable work. Pretty much nothing prevents them from doing it since they're self funding. Unless you can remove their self fundability, it will continue. This goes back to problem of needing consumers to vote with their wallet in an effective manner. The other option is to create the explicit policy protections in law to regulate these activities but as a society, capital has convinced everyone that all regulation is evil and will only hinder consumer/citizen progress. You need not only policy but real enforcement teeth as well that create disincentives that are catastrophic enough not to tempt risk for the potential gains.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

Unfortunately I think we live in a society where the people who could use this the most are the people least able to afford the costs of such a service.

rumblerock 5y ago

I'm certainly wish this were possible, and people who left would probably go back to the platform if it reformed itself in this direction. But as the years go on all I see are more and more catastrophic impacts from short term thinking and near term profit generation, whether it's Facebook, climate, VC-funded startups or the current supply chain crisis. Perhaps the public consciousness around the unhealthy design of existing social media is approaching a point where a new Facebook-like social network could actually achieve a critical mass of users. On the order of years I think it'll happen (like rates of smoking cigarettes), but how long that will be who knows. I can only hope it comes in the next few years as I fear the destructive ripple effects through culture and society are only getting worse.

istorical 5y ago

I find it absolutely painful that our recommender ML based content discovery streams like YouTube and Tiktok and Instagram don't have multiple 'hats' you can put on and take off, in the sense of saying 'hey TikTok, I'm feeling frisky, feel free to send me those thirst trap videos now', but then 30 minutes later you can say 'OK TikTok, I know I watched a bunch of those dancing videos, but can you send me the educational stuff now'. Ditto IG, YouTube etc. Like 'hey YouTube, engage education mode', 'hey YouTube, engage self-improvement mode', 'hey YouTube, I just wanna relax and laugh'. I know that there are categories, even auto-generated categories on YouTube, but they aren't that great or all encompassing. My biggest critique of present personalized ML content streams is that there's no two-way communication. I can't tell IG that yes I wanna see big booties right now, but no I don't want to see them five hours from now. Or I want to see aquaponics right now since I'm on a learning binge, but later tonight I don't need more technology and science, I just need to laugh and unwind. Our actions, our content consumption, is not allowed to be one and done. Every move you make is seen as a signal to the algorithm that you want more of that all the time. The closest thing we have is incognito mode, or maintaining multiple accounts for different purposes. But why can't you look at an ex on instagram one time without them showing you that person everytime you open the app for 5 years. It's really toxic and unsustainable that all of your actions are seen as 'yes, please more of this all the time'.

jorpal 5y ago
Anyone remember StumbleUpon? You could easily edit your interests and get different types of content. It was the pinnacle.
clairity 5y ago
> "...in the sense of saying 'hey TikTok, I'm feeling frisky, feel free to send me those thirst trap videos now'..." i once pitched this type of user experience (for the general case, not tiktok, which didn't exist at the time) at a hackathon competition, and it was popular enough then to win us some free stuff. the demo we hacked together was very rudimentary, but had we gotten a little further along with a proof of concept before falling apart, who knows what might have happened... the biggest challenge was actually licensing costs and rights management, not the recommendation engine (though that was challenging too).

mertd 5y ago

> changing the objective function to optimise for health, wellbeing and happiness. Whose? Individual or group wellbeing? Optimizing for one can lead to very suboptimal outcomes for the other.

tomjen3 5y ago
This feels like the argument about weather the self-driving car should hit two grandmas or the guy in the car. The discussion is not productive, because the answer that saves the most people is to get self-driving cars on the streets as soon as possible. As for the answer to your question, just go for best wellbeing for the individual. Happier, healthier, less obese, fitter, non-smoking people are also a net benefit to society. Assuming the technology works at all.

dado3212 5y ago

FB has gotten roasted for doing emotional manipulation in the past: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/?sh=4ff3b937197c https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook.... Not confident that the company trying to specifically target emotions (even ostensibly happiness) would be taken that well.

hetspookjee 5y ago
I do not believe Facebook as a company would be possible in generating such a thing. And if they could I can only be cynical about it. I rather put my faith in the open source community where people tinker on their own algorithms, and provide their own data. I am sure the first initiatives are already on their way regarding personal recommenders. But I don’t know any. If anyone does, please recommend :)
Frost1x 5y ago
I'm not sure it would matter. The general population that compose Facebooks revenue stream don't seem to care. We keep hinting at these ethical conundrums that invisibly regulate massive businesses when they simply don't. It's not just tech, it's big businesses in general. The ethics only matter if a large enough population of the consumer and product base both care and act. Only demand matters and if demand doesn't care or you can manipulate the demand not to care, you can get away with about anything that isn't explicitly illegal. I suspected Facebook does the work you referenced but I had no idea they actually did and had any flack about it. I'd like to think I'm a fairly tech savvy and an informed consumer (especially around issues like this), maybe I'm not, but if I am, what hope do you have of the general population caring when they aren't even aware as a first hurdle before the other massive hurdles of getting them to care enough to act. The fact is that this type of work isn't regulated. Funding agencies regulate human subject work for your typical public funded research work and require a lot of informed consent. The leverage they use is that should you violate these terms, you may have current and future funding pulled, may be black listed across multiple agencies, and may find it difficult to pursue any career in research in the future involving human subjects. There are lots of disincentives not do this on the premise of manipulating your resources. Meanwhile, entities like Facebook have piles of such resources and have a vested interest in all sorts of this questionable work. Pretty much nothing prevents them from doing it since they're self funding. Unless you can remove their self fundability, it will continue. This goes back to problem of needing consumers to vote with their wallet in an effective manner. The other option is to create the explicit policy protections in law to regulate these activities but as a society, capital has convinced everyone that all regulation is evil and will only hinder consumer/citizen progress. You need not only policy but real enforcement teeth as well that create disincentives that are catastrophic enough not to tempt risk for the potential gains.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]