2 ms·
I blamed content recommendation algorithms specifically. They blindly amplify a lot of problems, and I'm not sure they can be fixed broadly enough to avoid this
by micromacrofoot 4y ago
I blamed content recommendation algorithms specifically. They blindly amplify a lot of problems, and I'm not sure they can be fixed broadly enough to avoid this. We've seen this time and time again at this point. There are so many examples, notably youtube has a problem with accidentally radicalizing terrorists.
It seems we've discovered that there's a good amount of value in looking for content rather than mindlessly consuming what's being fed to us.
It's the old (tongue-in-cheek) problem of telling your family you like cows... only to later dread the fact that every gift they ever give you from then on will be cow related.
- bagels 4y agoRight, but showing all posts in chronological order is a "content recommendation" algorithm. Is that amplifying problems too?
- micromacrofoot 4y agoThis seems like pedantry with no purpose, if my boss asked me to create an algorithm that recommended content I'm certain that they would absolutely not mean a list of chronologically ordered content. Do I really need to specificity that I'm talking about algorithms that recommend content using algorithmically presumed user interests based on aggregated behavior data?
- bagels 4y agoSo, recommending content in any of all possible ways is harmful? Or are there some ways that are not harmful (eg filtering out things relating to suicide)? It's not pedantry without purpose. The logical conclusion to algorithms are bad is the outlawing of all social media and news sites.
- micromacrofoot 4y agothen we start getting into who gets to be the proprietary arbiter of ok and not ok content, which frankly is probably even worse - china tweaking an algorithm to depress american productivity isn’t so far fetched when you consider what facebook has knowingly done to its own users