The big question is how? The algorithms aren’t the root cause of the problem, they are just amplifying natural human behaviour.
People have always fallen down these rabbit holes and any algorithm based on predicting what a person will be interested in will suffer a similar problem. How can you regulate what topics a person is interested in?
Do we need algorithms that predict what we’re interested in though? At what point do we go “ah this is actually causing more trouble than it’s worth?”
I’d be perfectly fine browsing content by category rather than having it fed to me based on some sort of black-box weighting system with no clear instructions for me to correct. I mean it works great here on Lemmy.
My theory is society has a suppressing affect on these things… It’s not nice to be a nazi, or to mistreat people you don’t like, so these things get hidden.
Algorithms do the opposite. Now someone with Nazi tendencies is surrounded by them and encouraged. Posts hating trans people get pushed by algorithms because they drive engagement (even if all the initial responses are negative, it’s still engagement to the algorithm, which will then boost the ‘popular’ post).
Things like lemmy and mastodon don’t do that and end up nicer places as a result.
The big question is how? The algorithms aren’t the root cause of the problem, they are just amplifying natural human behaviour.
People have always fallen down these rabbit holes and any algorithm based on predicting what a person will be interested in will suffer a similar problem. How can you regulate what topics a person is interested in?
Do we need algorithms that predict what we’re interested in though? At what point do we go “ah this is actually causing more trouble than it’s worth?”
I’d be perfectly fine browsing content by category rather than having it fed to me based on some sort of black-box weighting system with no clear instructions for me to correct. I mean it works great here on Lemmy.
Lemmy literally has an algorithm to rank posts
Or do you sort your posts by new?
What would you propose for YouTube?
My theory is society has a suppressing affect on these things… It’s not nice to be a nazi, or to mistreat people you don’t like, so these things get hidden.
Algorithms do the opposite. Now someone with Nazi tendencies is surrounded by them and encouraged. Posts hating trans people get pushed by algorithms because they drive engagement (even if all the initial responses are negative, it’s still engagement to the algorithm, which will then boost the ‘popular’ post).
Things like lemmy and mastodon don’t do that and end up nicer places as a result.
@dojan @Mr_Will
I’d recommend you read ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’.
Algorithms are usually developed with the best of intentions but no one really knows how they will behave out in the wild.
#algorithms
Thank you! I looked it up, and it sounds really interesting. Will have a deeper dive into it!