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Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

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Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#41

Post by phendrenad2 »

skrebbel wrote: post #35

I'm mildly curious about the whole Jordan Peterson anti-woke movement. Mildly, as in, I'm interested in the arguments but I often don't agree with them. I once made the mistake of clicking on a Peterson YouTube video and subsequently got only obscene alt-right "Peterson KILLS stupid feminist reporter!!" type of edited content. Like at some point 80% of my suggestions was crap like that, drowning out all the lovely ne…

I think that in the future, having a way to tell the algorithm "I didn't like this" will be common courtesy. Especially as the algorithm becomes stronger, I.E. companies offload more and more curation to ML.

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#42

Post by sas41 »

It's crazy just how much I go out of my way to avoid things that "personalize" my experience.

I don't use online music services, I discover music on various platforms and and download mp3s and keep a local library.

I avoid Youtube at it's defaults, I use 3rd party apps and VLC to do most of my watching, other than my subscriptions I tend to skim the Home page very rarely.

I do not use Netflix or other streaming services, I try to hunt down DVDs/Blu-Rays and prefer ripping them for my personal library.

My only problem is exclusives, as a fan of The Witcher series, I do feel like I am missing out, but if I feel a really strong urge I can always borrow an account from a friend, create a temp profile, watch the series and delete it.

Their convenience features just add more inconvenience to me.

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#43

Post by travoltaj »

werid wrote: post #20

It's annoying clicking some youtube link only to find it was something you really don't want more of, and then youtube proceed to recommend much more of it, even though you barely watched any of it. kinda forces me to watch something else that is new but at least somewhat wanted in an attempt to make the algorithm look at the new shiny i'm interested in and forget the previous one. i find it funny though when amazon…

YouTube's personalization recommendation is a nightmare. Just the other day, YouTube played "Billie eilish -copycat" for me literally after every other song.

I pretty much only YouTube in Incognito mode these days. Everytime I forget, YouTube manages to annoy me so much within half an hour that I switch to Incognito again.

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#45

Post by domnomnom »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #9

Even in a tweet about algorithms the guy can’t help but dunk on men to show what a nice guy he is.

Lmao good catch. Can someone explain the alternate reality we seem to exist in? Do y’all see these people around a lot?

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#46

Post by Garlef »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #18
Garlef wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it and went back to google because google saves me time. As a dev, I google a lot to figure out how to do X. My experience with DuckDuckGo was that it added 2-10 minutes of filtering for usable results every time.

I am using DuckDuckGo and my experience is completely different, but I might be missing something. Do you have an example of a search you've done where the results were much better from Google Search than from DuckDuckGo?

> Do you have an example of a search ...

Due to the very topic this HN post is about, I don't think this is a good method - your results might be vastly different from mine.

But let's look at the number of relevant results among the top 5 results for some thing I recently wanted to learn about.

"Comprehension categories" - a rather specific term from category theory

https://www.google.com/search?q=comprehension+category https://duckduckgo.com/?q=comprehension+category

Google: 5/5 (for me) DuckDuckGo: 1/5 (for me)

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#47

Post by domnomnom »

skrebbel wrote: post #35

I'm mildly curious about the whole Jordan Peterson anti-woke movement. Mildly, as in, I'm interested in the arguments but I often don't agree with them. I once made the mistake of clicking on a Peterson YouTube video and subsequently got only obscene alt-right "Peterson KILLS stupid feminist reporter!!" type of edited content. Like at some point 80% of my suggestions was crap like that, drowning out all the lovely ne…

It’s going to kill us

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#48

Post by chiefalchemist »

skrebbel wrote: post #35

I'm mildly curious about the whole Jordan Peterson anti-woke movement. Mildly, as in, I'm interested in the arguments but I often don't agree with them. I once made the mistake of clicking on a Peterson YouTube video and subsequently got only obscene alt-right "Peterson KILLS stupid feminist reporter!!" type of edited content. Like at some point 80% of my suggestions was crap like that, drowning out all the lovely ne…

Same. Worse is the fact it continues to make the same suggestions no matter how many times I scroll past, no matter how many other videos I watch.

I find Spotify similar. I try a suggested playlist. I check out after 2 or 3 songs. It doesn't get the hint.

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#49

Post by mrweasel »

The dumb thing about recommendation algorithms are that they assume that I’d like the same things, regardless of my mood or current situation. YouTube Music at least try to make guesses based on the time of day, but fail to take the actual music into account and just focus on the bands, and not the tempo, lyrics and overall sound of a track.

The only “algorithm” that sort of work is Amazons book recommendation, but I’m not sure that not just based on what others have bought.

Re: Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it

#50

Post by Garlef »

mrweasel wrote: post #36
stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am using DuckDuckGo and my experience is completely different, but I might be missing something. Do you have an example of a search you've done where the results were much better from Google Search than from DuckDuckGo?

My experience is that we reached a point where if DuckDuckGo can’t find something, then neither can Google. For local search Google is still a little better, but they choosen to drown out actual results with ads.

This might be true. But my point was that DuckDuckGo costs me too much time. To rephrase it: DuckDuckGo is more expensive to use. (At least for me).
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