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I really liked this quote, which is also true of machine learning organizations at large tech companies: The most valuable data is not social data, ... but

I really liked this quote, which is also true of machine learning organizations at large tech companies: The most valuable data is not social data, ... but your own data because every dataset that you’re looking at internally describes your own process, including your bugs, ... building models from your own data is the only way to build a really successful system. This is one thing that a lot of outsiders do not understand. Facebook/Google's data is basically worthless to anybody but Facebook/Google. The data has value because it is derived from their own processes, which in this case are the requests and context of each product surface.

ethbr0 5y ago
It makes sense when you ask the question another way: "What is the likelihood that a preexisting assemblage of data contains all the nuances for my specific process?" Some domains are intricately mapped in available data (e.g. equity pricing), but most, and especially most physical, are not (e.g. freight transportation).
deleted 5y ago
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robbedpeter 5y ago
Yeah, I'm gonna say that romanticizing mass surveillance is a bit much. Cambridge Analytica, the five eyes countries, Clearview - all these are using Facebook and Google's data to great effect. Facebook and Google's data are not their own. That data is comprised of private lives, stripped bare pixel by pixel, bit by bit, and it's offensive to frame it as if they're doing something alchemical and special with it. Google's search dominance came from something special, creating the right algorithm and seizing the first mover advantage, but the relentless and ruthless invasion of privacy is a rent seeking race to the bottom. All of the ills of the internet and political turmoil in the west from algorithmic amplification are the brainchilren of Facebook and Google. It turns out that "tailoring search results" and "targeted advertisement" are excuses for something that can cost far more than a society might want to pay.
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  I'm not going to engage in a flame war over this, but suffice it to say that this is pretty much exactly the misunderstanding I was referring to with that quote. Most data Facebook collects is of the form (user saw this post, user clicked/did not click this post). That data's value is tightly coupled to the process Facebook used to decide whether or not to cause the user to see that post. The data only has value in the context of iterating on that process.
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  You’re totally missing the GP’s point. You’re also absolutely right that the social media content: the photos, the sentiments, the likes, the connections, should not in any way “belong” to FB/G. The data that does belong to them, and that is useless to anyone else, are the outputs from their sentiment analyzer service, the weights and trigger conditions for their content ranking algorithms, the intermediate outputs of their ML evaluations, etc. GP, and the article, are saying: look there first. Try to start by truly understanding “what you already know, but aren’t paying enough attention to,” and don’t just treat the problem as “needs more data.”
- xibalba 5y ago
  > mass surveillance > rent seeking > first mover advantage This reads like an HN buzzword bingo card. But seriously, a lot of your claims are flimsy or misinformed, which goes to credibility. Cambridge Analytica was a huge nothingburger that had no actual effect on US elections or Brexit. Google did not have first mover advantage, they were so late to the search engine game that it caused them trouble in their early financing. Show us a real, known harm from Clearview. Google and Facebook are not breaking any laws, so how can they be "invading privacy"? The bottom line is, people love FAANG tech, and are happy to trade their data to use it. And one of the reasons is because they are not experiencing real harm, in spite of what HN's white knights would have us believe.

ethbr0 5y ago

It makes sense when you ask the question another way: "What is the likelihood that a preexisting assemblage of data contains all the nuances for my specific process?" Some domains are intricately mapped in available data (e.g. equity pricing), but most, and especially most physical, are not (e.g. freight transportation).

deleted 5y ago

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robbedpeter 5y ago

Yeah, I'm gonna say that romanticizing mass surveillance is a bit much. Cambridge Analytica, the five eyes countries, Clearview - all these are using Facebook and Google's data to great effect. Facebook and Google's data are not their own. That data is comprised of private lives, stripped bare pixel by pixel, bit by bit, and it's offensive to frame it as if they're doing something alchemical and special with it. Google's search dominance came from something special, creating the right algorithm and seizing the first mover advantage, but the relentless and ruthless invasion of privacy is a rent seeking race to the bottom. All of the ills of the internet and political turmoil in the west from algorithmic amplification are the brainchilren of Facebook and Google. It turns out that "tailoring search results" and "targeted advertisement" are excuses for something that can cost far more than a society might want to pay.

mgraczyk 5y ago
I'm not going to engage in a flame war over this, but suffice it to say that this is pretty much exactly the misunderstanding I was referring to with that quote. Most data Facebook collects is of the form (user saw this post, user clicked/did not click this post). That data's value is tightly coupled to the process Facebook used to decide whether or not to cause the user to see that post. The data only has value in the context of iterating on that process.
mattcwilson 5y ago
You’re totally missing the GP’s point. You’re also absolutely right that the social media content: the photos, the sentiments, the likes, the connections, should not in any way “belong” to FB/G. The data that does belong to them, and that is useless to anyone else, are the outputs from their sentiment analyzer service, the weights and trigger conditions for their content ranking algorithms, the intermediate outputs of their ML evaluations, etc. GP, and the article, are saying: look there first. Try to start by truly understanding “what you already know, but aren’t paying enough attention to,” and don’t just treat the problem as “needs more data.”
xibalba 5y ago
> mass surveillance > rent seeking > first mover advantage This reads like an HN buzzword bingo card. But seriously, a lot of your claims are flimsy or misinformed, which goes to credibility. Cambridge Analytica was a huge nothingburger that had no actual effect on US elections or Brexit. Google did not have first mover advantage, they were so late to the search engine game that it caused them trouble in their early financing. Show us a real, known harm from Clearview. Google and Facebook are not breaking any laws, so how can they be "invading privacy"? The bottom line is, people love FAANG tech, and are happy to trade their data to use it. And one of the reasons is because they are not experiencing real harm, in spite of what HN's white knights would have us believe.