Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine • Hacker News Board

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#41

Post by ubernostrum » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

gear54rus wrote: post #31

jakobegger wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things should not be autocompleted. I can't think of a reason why a search engine should suggest a completion if you start typing something generic like "xyz are ...".

except it does suggest if you type 'people are...' some fucker somewhere again decided what you should or shouldn't see, there's no other explanation :)

some fucker somewhere again decided what you should or shouldn't see

Yes, that's what a suggestion algorithm is.

There is no pure Platonic ideal neutral objective suggestion algorithm. Every suggestion algorithm is going to have biases based on both its training data and the goals (explicit or otherwise) of its creators.

You've gotten as far as, apparently, noticing that tweaking the algorithm after the public has seen it constitutes a choice on the part of the designers about what they do and don't want to show you. Now take the final logical step, and observe that they already made choices about what they do and don't want to show you in the initial design, before the algorithm ever went public.

If you have a problem with the former, I don't see how you can be logically consistent while not having a problem with the latter.

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#42

Post by johnpowell » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 9:55 AM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #24

It doesn't suggest those things for me - did they fix it or is this a case of personalisation?

The article is 2.5 weeks old. Maybe the people at Bing cleaned it up a bit.

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#43

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #16

At least searching "muslims are" in Bing gives you honest autocompletes that reflect what people actually search for. Google, on the other hand, evidently censors content it deems to be offensive. If you search "muslims are" in Google, there are no autocomplete results at all. I doubt Google does not have enough data on "muslims are *" searches I have safe search off, meaning I don't want to be patronized when I am s…

I have just tried "muslims are" on bing.com right now and I get a single autocomplete result: "muslims are treated fairly". And "black people are" yields nothing at all.

Unless it's a regional thing, it seems that someone at Bing has read this news and now they are censoring exactly like Google.

If I try those same searches in Spanish, I do get some racist suggestions though. Probably not for long...

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#44

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 10:09 AM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #38

This article assumes that Bing is in the business of telling people what to think It's not; it's in the business of showing what people think

No, a search engine literally tells you what to look at, based on what you told it. And for many people there's a short path between seeing and believing.

The autocomplete suggestions are a suggestion: would you like to search for this? And in the minds of many people that normalises it.

"Stochastic terrorism" is a real problem. You've got one guy mailing out bombs and another shooting up a synagogue based on lies they read on the internet, just this past week. This stuff has consequences.

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#45

Post by pembrook » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

boffinism wrote: post #34

klohto wrote: post #32

Why does everyone need to have a safe space? Bing suggestions work perfectly fine without patronizing and treating you like a dumb child that doesn't know how to use internet.

A bunch of people who use Bing are children who don't know how to use the internet.

So the slippery slope here is: if you're 12 and see an algorithm autocomplete "muslims are [insert racist thing]," its going turn you into a racist by suggestion?

The reason autocomplete results end up this way is because the humans this kid lives around are racists. Those people will be the reason the kid grows up racist, not some 2nd tier search engine. Why lie to the kid and pretend like the community he/she lives in doesn't have a problem?

I've never understood this bizarre desire we have to hide reality from children to keep them ignorant (or more commonly referred to as "innocent"). As if they can't observe the objective reality around them. The sooner they can understand the problems with the world the sooner their generation can work toward fixing them.

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#46

Post by pjc50 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #37

What? I tried these searches out when the article was just three hours old on HN. I could not reproduce any of these results. Safe Search was set "Moderate", and my results did not change significantly when I switched it to "Off". The worst it got for me was when I asked for autocomplete suggestions for "muslims are": good hindu worst cancer killed Disclosure: I performed these searches from India. I'm open to the po…

Not so much autocomplete suggestions, but the autosuggested related searches under Image Search.

In my case I got shown "muslims are scum" and "muslims are terrorists", in the UK. "Michelle Obama" got suggested "... muscles"?

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#47

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #39

shroom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment I reacted with 14M not being a lot at all. I was surprised to find out it is true. Having no knowledge of this before I’ve always assumed this number would be higher. Based on influence I guess. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

It would have been a lot higher if six million hadn't been murdered.

[deleted]

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#48

Post by gear54rus » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:03 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #41

gear54rus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except it does suggest if you type 'people are...' some fucker somewhere again decided what you should or shouldn't see, there's no other explanation :)

some fucker somewhere again decided what you should or shouldn't see Yes, that's what a suggestion algorithm is. There is no pure Platonic ideal neutral objective suggestion algorithm. Every suggestion algorithm is going to have biases based on both its training data and the goals (explicit or otherwise) of its creators. You've gotten as far as, apparently, noticing that tweaking the algorithm after the public has se…

when I enter something, I expect to see what other people search for, not "what people search for, except...", this talk about suggestion algos has nothing to do with the issue I think

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#49

Post by mosselman » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

henriquemaia wrote: post #28

mosselman wrote: post #14

Not the main point of the article, so off topic, but isn’t “underage children” a pleonasm? Or is it a term that respects that we are all someone’s child, so also when we reach adulthood? The term seems to suggest there is an age from which it is acceptable for children to receive sexual attention from adults. I prefer to think that there is no such age. Most people would probably agree with this. Pleonasms are very c…

Well, you can have shared belongings, as with things you own with your family members (usually spouse). So my personal belongings is a valid distinction, not a pleonasm.

It depends on the context. In case of selling a house while you have shared belongings with the neighbours, then yes. When the train conductor says: "Don't forget your personal belongings when leaving the train", then it is a pleonasm as the distinction is probably not intentional; I doubt the conductor wants you to leave your shared belongings in the train.

Re: Bing Is Suggesting the Worst Things You Can Imagine

#50

Post by mosselman » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 11:17 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #25

mosselman wrote: post #14

Not the main point of the article, so off topic, but isn’t “underage children” a pleonasm? Or is it a term that respects that we are all someone’s child, so also when we reach adulthood? The term seems to suggest there is an age from which it is acceptable for children to receive sexual attention from adults. I prefer to think that there is no such age. Most people would probably agree with this. Pleonasms are very c…

> Most people would probably agree with this. I think you might be overestimating how common your opinion is. In many (maybe most) countries, children are considered capable of consent even before they are granted all privileges of adulthood. Sometimes it's only if the partner is underage as well, but then one will be an adult sooner than the other, so there are exceptions for cases where the age difference is small.…

What you say is true for interpersonal relationships. The article is about imagery with an erotic element. So in the context of erotic photography I think that most countries would consider participation of children illegal and I think most people would agree with that.

So I'd think that in the context of the article it could be a pleonasm, but an understandable one then.