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YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

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Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#41

Post by mjburgess »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #31
maxehmookau wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. It sounds like a way to stop otherwise normal-minded folks from slipping down a YouTube-encouraged rabbithole of things that are demonstrably untrue.

I am not at all trying to delve into the topic of the legitimacy of the 2020 election. So, my next question is not an assertion that fraud took place. When you say "demonstrably untrue", who determines such things? It is usually not the case that one side is entirely and wholly untrue. Losing a court case or having one be dismissed on procedural grounds does not mean the defense or prosecution had no merit whatsoever…

The issue here is that videos aren't actually "recommended" in the sense that your considered preferences are reviewed and a genuine recommendation made. Youtube isnt a friend, an academic supervisor, or a doctor. It isnt even aware of your interests, let alone "has them at heart".

Rather, it's a casino. And that's not value-neutral, freedom-neutral. It's pretty antithetical to freedom, as you can see from all the people destroying their lives at the gambling machines.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#42

Post by mjevans »

saurik wrote: post #27
RobotToaster wrote: post #7

Algorithm designed to show people what they want shows people what they want.

Do they really want that, though, or do they simply get more excited by it? Let's take a more striking example: someone trying to avoid wallowing in a pit of despair and grief over a loved one dying. I feel like many such people would tell you they are actively wanting to and even trying to avoid triggers for such, but once they run into one it pulls at them and they start to fall down a rabbit hole where a few hours…

The machines don't have malice, they aren't like humans.

No company is required to provide intellectually healthy results. How would those be defined in a fair way? Is there even a good way of detecting less direct codeword driven searches that might silo perspective?

A better approach might involve multiple, hopefully not for profit, fact checking and news organizations. Each might have a Truth / Lies and Bias / Informative score among others that helps show the quality of the information. This metadata could be a first class citizen on the content. A warning in front of content that has not yet been vetted or which includes lies / large bias might help warn and inform end users.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#43

Post by smoldesu »

saurik wrote: post #27
RobotToaster wrote: post #7

Algorithm designed to show people what they want shows people what they want.

Do they really want that, though, or do they simply get more excited by it? Let's take a more striking example: someone trying to avoid wallowing in a pit of despair and grief over a loved one dying. I feel like many such people would tell you they are actively wanting to and even trying to avoid triggers for such, but once they run into one it pulls at them and they start to fall down a rabbit hole where a few hours…

I agreed with you up until this point:

> And that's Google: the people at Google that work on this software are evil.

This is an asinine assertion. The people at Google that work on this are the same as you and I, motivated by precisely the same incentives. They're no different from the people at Microsoft or Amazon or Apple or Netflix, and many of them probably worked at those companies previously. The upper management working at any modern tech company will readily abuse their position as a service provider if it makes them more money. Apple does it with the App Store. Microsoft does it with Windows APIs. Amazon does it with Prime and their shipping networks.

The lack of regulation and blind money-chasing is what allows for evil decisions. There's no minion of Sauron working at Google, plotting ways to make your user experience subtly worse. Accusing them of that is ridiculous, and I hope you don't look at your coworkers the same way.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#44

Post by IceMetalPunk »

saurik wrote: post #27
RobotToaster wrote: post #7

Algorithm designed to show people what they want shows people what they want.

Do they really want that, though, or do they simply get more excited by it? Let's take a more striking example: someone trying to avoid wallowing in a pit of despair and grief over a loved one dying. I feel like many such people would tell you they are actively wanting to and even trying to avoid triggers for such, but once they run into one it pulls at them and they start to fall down a rabbit hole where a few hours…

I agree with you that clicks and view time do not necessarily equate to desired content, but I disagree with you that Google uses those parameters because they're "evil". They make money when people continue using their products, regardless of whether that's because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of engaging things they don't want, or because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of things they actually do want.

I think the reason Google (and Amazon, and Netflix, and every other major tech company) uses clicks/view time as recommendation engine inputs is because... well, what else can they use? What quantifiable metric could possibly be used for large-scale, automated recommendations that more accurately indicates what someone actually wants to see more of? (This isn't rhetorical: if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.)

I don't think clicks/view time are the best metrics at all, and I don't think they're extremely accurate. But I also think they're the most accurate measure we've got, with the only other options being either (a) remove recommendations entirely, or (b) have humans manually monitor everything you do on the website, occasionally ask you why you clicked or watched things, and then make personal recommendations to you based on your answers. The latter of which is slow, more expensive, less scalable, more invasive to the user, and more tedious for the employees that would have to sit there monitoring you.

Maybe one day we'll have an AI method of using your comments and search terms as a better indication of desire (I dare say some of the recent LLMs are close to being ready for that task), but we're not there yet.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#46

Post by IceMetalPunk »

acd wrote: post #9

What happens if a user of Youtube is depressed? Is Youtube more likely to direct and promote videos making the user more depressed? Say that you write an recommendation algorithm to maximize viewing time for advertising purposes does the recommendation algorithm take ethical decisions what is suitable content? What if the user is viewing extreme content what will the recommendation algorithm recommend?

Even humans have trouble deciding (a) what constitutes "suitable content" and (b) whether we should be deciding that for other people. So of course our current algorithms don't take that into account, since we can't define it in the first place.

Maybe one day AI will get to the point where people will accept its decisions on such matters (knowing humanity, I deem this unlikely), but for now, there's no way to do that beyond just removing that content in the first place. And then you get into a huge debacle where people complain about censorship, and... yeah, it's not really a solvable problem.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#47

Post by IceMetalPunk »

raverbashing wrote: post #10
jjulius wrote: post #2

Well... yeah. That's the whole point of the algorithm - figure out what you're into, and show more of it to you.

Yeah YT is a drug pusher. In the worse of ways I notice that the moment I watch a video slightly "off center" it goes full slippery slope on my recommendations. No kidding "Ah but this is what it should do". No, it shouldn't To not give a political example, this is like chasing and knocking on people's doors at dinner time with a full McD meal because you had a frozen yogurt in the afternoon

That's a poor analogy. You're going to the website, it's not coming to you, and you're given recommendations, not having them load and play the videos for you automatically. This is more like you buy a frozen yogurt at McDonald's in the afternoon, and when you return to McDonald's, the cashier asks if you'd like a McFlurry this time, and maybe to try a Big Mac combo?

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#48

Post by mandmandam »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #23
maxehmookau wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would argue, allowing election conspiracy theories to propagate is a necessary evil of a functioning democracy. I think real-world experience has proven that this isn't true. I get the idea behind what you're saying but the US (and UK/Europe) has had pretty much a constant onslaught on election conspiracies at all levels of our democracy. The outcome has not been to make our democracies better functioning.

What's the alternative? Every corrupt leader since Nero has called their opposition's true statements "conspiracy theories" or similar and suppressed their statements as such; or deliberately invented conspiracy theories about their opponents and declared the truth to be the conspiracy. You can look up speeches in which Fascist and Nazi leaders denounced the "conspiracy theories" against them, which were (at the time…

The alternative is making it almost impossible to have corrupt leaders in the first place, through taking care of society and the people in it.

Strong local media, strong local politics, strong education systems, strong protections for whistleblowers, a healthy environment, clean water, good cheap food, affordable housing, quality entertainment - there are countries in the world where citizens have all of this. And they don't have "single arbiters of truth" managing it.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#49

Post by IceMetalPunk »

takeitonbaby wrote: post #19

We all know that 2016 was the only stolen election.

Not stolen, just a terrible consequence of a poor voting system (i.e. electoral college) and a larger-than-comfortable minority of voters who were also shitty humans.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#50

Post by thorum »

Whatever you think about election fraud in particular, the ultimate effect of these recommendation engines is to close everyone off into “filter bubbles” where they only see things that conform to their worldview, and are encouraged toward more and more extreme and polarized views. I can’t help but think this phenomenon explains many of the problems in the world today.
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