Technology

The danger of algorithms

| #AI | #Social Studies | #socialmedia | #Tech | #youtube |


People are scared of artificial intelligence, of machine learning, but not in the sci-fi robots-gonna-eat-us way. The reality is, it’s worse.

In my entire life I’ve only met one person who admits they are fed ads that interest them on platforms like Facebook. These ads certainly don’t work for me, and they don’t work for most people I ask. The machines, it seems, don’t know fuckall about me, and so they are shoving uninteresting shit in my face. It makes me a bit angry, I must say.

But, as discussed in this fairly to-the-point article, a very real danger of the algorithms is how the’re ready and able to radicalize us all. No matter your interest, it seems, Youtube profits from bringing to you the rabbit hole of more and more extreme views. It benefits from outrage, from heated discussions, from all the kinds of engagement that follow from showing users something crazy, or something outrageous.

And, holy shit, that’s a problem.

--NFG
[ Mar 11 2018 ]
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