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Google never talked much about it externally, but Google Research (the predecessor to Brain) had a single project which almost entirely funded the entire divisi

by dekhn 4y ago

Google never talked much about it externally, but Google Research (the predecessor to Brain) had a single project which almost entirely funded the entire division- a growth-oriented machine learnign system called Sibyl. What was sibyl used for? Growing youtube and google play and other products by making the more addictive. Sibyl wasn't a very good system (I've never seen a product that had more technical debt) but it did basically "pay for" all of the research for a while.

temac 4y ago
Seems to be quite evil though.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Every business is essentially in the business of making people addicted to their products in some way. You're an oil company - you want people to drive as much as possible. You're an airline company - you want people to fly all over the world as much as possible. You're a fashion company - you want people to buy new clothes constantly. You're a beverage company - you want people drinking your drink all the time instead of water. You're an Internet advertising company - you want people's eyeballs on your products as much as possible (to blast them with ads). It's just business.
  - wetmore 4y ago
    That doesn't mean it's not evil though?
- packetslave 4y ago
  It's evil if you phrase it (as OP did) as "getting people addicted to YouTube". Less so if you phrase it "show people recommendations that they're likely to actually click on, based on what they've watched previously", which is what Sybil really was.
throwaway29303 4y ago
In case anyone is wondering what Sibyl is all about, here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaZ5UAQrQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaZ5UAQrQM
- dekhn 4y ago
  Yep- that goes into a fair amount of detail. Sibyl was retired but many of the ideas lived on in TFX. I worked on it a bit and it was definitely the weirdest, most technically-debt-ridden systems I've ever seen, but it was highly effective at getting people additicted to watching Youtube and downloading games that showed ads.

by dekhn 4y ago

temac 4y ago

Seems to be quite evil though.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Every business is essentially in the business of making people addicted to their products in some way. You're an oil company - you want people to drive as much as possible. You're an airline company - you want people to fly all over the world as much as possible. You're a fashion company - you want people to buy new clothes constantly. You're a beverage company - you want people drinking your drink all the time instead of water. You're an Internet advertising company - you want people's eyeballs on your products as much as possible (to blast them with ads). It's just business.
- wetmore 4y ago
  That doesn't mean it's not evil though?
packetslave 4y ago
It's evil if you phrase it (as OP did) as "getting people addicted to YouTube". Less so if you phrase it "show people recommendations that they're likely to actually click on, based on what they've watched previously", which is what Sybil really was.

throwaway29303 4y ago

In case anyone is wondering what Sibyl is all about, here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaZ5UAQrQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaZ5UAQrQM

dekhn 4y ago
Yep- that goes into a fair amount of detail. Sibyl was retired but many of the ideas lived on in TFX. I worked on it a bit and it was definitely the weirdest, most technically-debt-ridden systems I've ever seen, but it was highly effective at getting people additicted to watching Youtube and downloading games that showed ads.