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I am guessing that, within my lifetime, recommendation systems (music, movies, fashion suggestions) will give perfect recommendations from the perspective of th

I am guessing that, within my lifetime, recommendation systems (music, movies, fashion suggestions) will give perfect recommendations from the perspective of the user. It feels like that's already true for Spotify, so I'm not surprised at these findings. I'm sure there won't be any challenging existential side effects of pervasive corporate surveillance, eliminating what remains of the illusion of choice.

sneak 3y ago
> It feels like that's already true for Spotify I vehemently disagree. This may be true for the general case of music listener but there is a long tail (of both listeners and musical works) that Spotify is very very bad at.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  So it’s your perspective that the current limits will continue to be limits in some sense? Why wouldn’t that tail eventually get consumed?
- softsound 3y ago
  Yep, I'm not even a big music person, but Spotify is terrible at predicting music for me, it's so bad I barely try new music because most of it is trash but then again Spotify thinks I like 350+ genres so there is a lot of room for failure. There are also two kinds of people, people who like albums and people who like singles. I'm not an album person because it's often lackluster and repetitive, few bands can really create good albums that surprise me but singles on the other hand can shine and the band knows they can. Just because I like one song doesn't mean I'll like 5 other songs from a band. Most of my favorite music is pretty unknown. I'd imagine hits are just like that hit or miss and good marketing is what really helps a lot of things sell.
- belly_joe 3y ago
  In my experience, Spotify generally picks 20-40 top songs from each genre and recommends them to any listener that has showed interest in that genre. To a listener new to the genre, this yields a pretty good hit rate and the perception that Spotify is great at recommendation, but after spending any reasonable amount of time listening to the genre, the same 20-40 recommendations get stale and Spotify is completely unable to surface relevant songs from deeper in the genre catalog.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Really interesting because it’s amazingly accurate for me and has very consistently given me amazing recommendations every week I will note though that I have been in machine learning since 2011 and generally know how these systems work so I can give them inputs that I know will reinforce their pathways for recommendations in a direction I want it
esjeon 3y ago
I doubt it, because the choice can always be impacted by outside actors. I believe AIs in the future will just manipulate people and keep pumping new stuffs for the sake of keeping them interested, instead of struggling to understand each individuals' taste. It's much cheaper, easier, practical and effective.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  (Not joking) Eventually no actors or actions will be outside of the data collection environment that feeds into the global knowledge graphs. And yes I agree and expect that non human systems will adjust human preferences over the long run. That’s the point right? A caretaker assistant that is smarter, more capable and can better predict your needs than anything ever

sneak 3y ago

> It feels like that's already true for Spotify I vehemently disagree. This may be true for the general case of music listener but there is a long tail (of both listeners and musical works) that Spotify is very very bad at.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
So it’s your perspective that the current limits will continue to be limits in some sense? Why wouldn’t that tail eventually get consumed?
softsound 3y ago
Yep, I'm not even a big music person, but Spotify is terrible at predicting music for me, it's so bad I barely try new music because most of it is trash but then again Spotify thinks I like 350+ genres so there is a lot of room for failure. There are also two kinds of people, people who like albums and people who like singles. I'm not an album person because it's often lackluster and repetitive, few bands can really create good albums that surprise me but singles on the other hand can shine and the band knows they can. Just because I like one song doesn't mean I'll like 5 other songs from a band. Most of my favorite music is pretty unknown. I'd imagine hits are just like that hit or miss and good marketing is what really helps a lot of things sell.
belly_joe 3y ago
In my experience, Spotify generally picks 20-40 top songs from each genre and recommends them to any listener that has showed interest in that genre. To a listener new to the genre, this yields a pretty good hit rate and the perception that Spotify is great at recommendation, but after spending any reasonable amount of time listening to the genre, the same 20-40 recommendations get stale and Spotify is completely unable to surface relevant songs from deeper in the genre catalog.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Really interesting because it’s amazingly accurate for me and has very consistently given me amazing recommendations every week I will note though that I have been in machine learning since 2011 and generally know how these systems work so I can give them inputs that I know will reinforce their pathways for recommendations in a direction I want it

esjeon 3y ago

I doubt it, because the choice can always be impacted by outside actors. I believe AIs in the future will just manipulate people and keep pumping new stuffs for the sake of keeping them interested, instead of struggling to understand each individuals' taste. It's much cheaper, easier, practical and effective.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
(Not joking) Eventually no actors or actions will be outside of the data collection environment that feeds into the global knowledge graphs. And yes I agree and expect that non human systems will adjust human preferences over the long run. That’s the point right? A caretaker assistant that is smarter, more capable and can better predict your needs than anything ever