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Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
61–68 of 68 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#62I think that the issue is that it's always assumed that similar things are a better recommendation. The issue is at least for myself and other people I've talked to about that a lot of times we're looking for something different from the last thing. For example if I spend a week listening to vintage surf rock the recommendations that could be given might be 60s pop, or more surf rock. But what actually I wanted was t…
IMO the best recommendation algorithms don't bother recommending things they think one will like; instead they recommend novel things one won't dislike.
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#63Have some new ideas for that. Have a Ph.D. in math, and derived some math for that, wrote it out with theorems and proofs in TeX. Should do better than current AI. Have Web site code, running as intended, for that. Collecting data.
This is very exciting. Do you need beta testers? How do we track your progress? Ship it!!!
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#64I think that the issue is that it's always assumed that similar things are a better recommendation. The issue is at least for myself and other people I've talked to about that a lot of times we're looking for something different from the last thing. For example if I spend a week listening to vintage surf rock the recommendations that could be given might be 60s pop, or more surf rock. But what actually I wanted was t…
I think Pandora is one of the better systems out there for this. You prime it with a few examples of stuff you like but then it seems to continually drop slightly different stuff on you to see how you react.
> Pandora
That's a name I've not heard in a long time. I had no idea they were still in business, I may give it a try.
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#65I think the problem might be the quality of the data. For example on Steam the problem is that the tags are used very liberally to the point where these tags lose any meaning and thus the recommendations suck as a result.
Let's say for example that you've enjoyed the recent hit game Baldur's Gate 3 and you'd like to play something similar. You check out the Steam page, see that the game is tagged as a "RPG", so you click the tag and expect to get something similar. What you get instead are games that are not only very different but also so far removed from the genre that no one will ever list them in a forum thread talking about RPGs. Examples include titles such as Dota 2, Warframe, Palworld and Horizon Zero Dawn. There are genuine RPG games as well but the fact that there are so many titles that you need to ignore is pretty bad.
Tags aren't the only way Steam recommends new games. Going back to Baldur's Gate 3 Steam page there's a section called "more like this". I'd expect it to match more closely to BG3 and in many cases it does. But when it doesn't, it shows up ridiculous recommendations like The Sims 3 or Tom Clancy's The Division - games that have nothing to do with what Baldur's Gate 3 is.
And all of this is for an extremely popular game that at the same time doesn't do anything revolutionary. Trying the same approach with a more unconventional title that you've liked is a quick recipe for failure. I've just checked the recommendation page for Undertale and it's full of random games that have nothing to do with the title.
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how that's related to the quality of recommendations the algorithm gives.
Because the algorithm has been shown to recommend nice videos which show that the russians have very good reasons to annex ukraine, or that the chinese economy is going so well, or that this right-wing fringe party has actually very good answer to the speech of a government official. But yes, it's all just a coincidence and does not affect the quality of recommendations. TikTok recommends 9 good videos and then 1 whe…
I live in Europe, I browse TikTok regularly I have yet to see a political post. It's mostly gardening and cycling content on my feed. Maybe this is a "search and it will find you" type of situation?
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#67When I login to video platforms, I often spend some time to make bookmarks of videos I want to watch.
When it comes to relaxing and watching something, I don’t like _my own recommendations_.
Maybe recommendation is like that friend who invites you to watch a movie—you know it’s a gamble. Haha.
Re: Ask HN: Why do recommender systems not seem good?
#68Have some new ideas for that. Have a Ph.D. in math, and derived some math for that, wrote it out with theorems and proofs in TeX. Should do better than current AI. Have Web site code, running as intended, for that. Collecting data.
This is very exciting. Do you need beta testers? How do we track your progress? Ship it!!!
Thanks! Intend to announce here at HN. Yes, beta testers will be very welcome. For the feedback, guessing a Facebook page?