211–220 of 272 posts
Maybe Youtube can provide a choice of algorithms. For example, if somebody wants a more curated "socially acceptable" experience, they could opt-in.
Just anecdotally, Youtube's recommendation system seems effectively self-referential. On virtually any subject I look at, recommended videos seem to cycle between just a few themes or even just a few specific videos. I think there's a logical reason for this. I imagine for a given topic you wind-up with: [broad video] related to [other broad but unrelated video] plus [extremist video]. And [extremist video] related t…
I can't watch the pleasant tourist videos of Antarctica before bed, in case I fall asleep and the automation shows me a stream of flat-earth videos.
The link here is just the word Antarctica. The flat-earth view has nothing to do with viewing penguins or pleasant scenery.
This was addressed more broadly in "We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads" by Zeynep Tufekci on TED. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891014 She remarked that Youtube's recommendation system invariably pushes people towards more extreme views on anything , not just politics. Interested in vegetarianism? Here's something about veganism. She has a hypothesis it works this way because the goal…
It's not necessarily that most people don't like balanced views. It may be just most people aren't excited by balanced views. Extreme views are more emotion provoking, even if you disagree with them. But if the algorithm actually sends you nothing but extreme views, you may eventually start having doubts and become a new convert. The joke's on you.
It's like the pickup advice (I smell downvotes again) that when it comes to women, it's better to be outrageous than boring.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Solomon story one woman was 100% right and one was 100% wrong. Are there many social issues where the 2 sides that meed this criterion? I think a better visualization of the problem is "you can't cross a canyon in less than a single bound". Sometimes there is no meeting half way. Last but not least, compromising is sometimes not an option. It's like the paradox of tolerance where the only thing you have to be…
> Hate speech is not free speech any more than contract killing is just a financial transaction. Personal anecdote. When I moved to the UK in the 1970, there was a little platform in Hyde Park called Speaker's Corner. Anyone could step onto it and make a speech about anything, anything at all; they could do so in the strongest terms, without being bothered; there was always a small audience standing around, and often…
See also Danah Boyd's talk on how media literacy classes push some students toward extremism. The gist is that schools have been promoting programs where students are taught not to take what they see in the media at face value, and to go Google/YouTube it for themselves. Which, because of the sorts of things discussed in this article, results in a certain percentage of students becoming radicalized and basically (or…
I will specifically not search for "X president Y" or "X president Z" because that will be priming the algorithm to confirm my biases.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the Solomon story one woman was 100% right and one was 100% wrong. Are there many social issues where the 2 sides that meed this criterion? I think a better visualization of the problem is "you can't cross a canyon in less than a single bound". Sometimes there is no meeting half way. Last but not least, compromising is sometimes not an option. It's like the paradox of tolerance where the only thing you have to be…
> Hate speech is not free speech any more than contract killing is just a financial transaction. Personal anecdote. When I moved to the UK in the 1970, there was a little platform in Hyde Park called Speaker's Corner. Anyone could step onto it and make a speech about anything, anything at all; they could do so in the strongest terms, without being bothered; there was always a small audience standing around, and often…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For a lot of social issues, being given the midpoint solution is like being given half a baby. I think this cuts to the heart of the issue - and demonstrates the problem with this line of thinking. I also think you're missing the point of the Solomon story. When Solomon proposed that solution, one woman said "No, no - give her the baby." That woman was willing to compromise. She was willing to compromise all the wa…
In the Solomon story one woman was 100% right and one was 100% wrong. Are there many social issues where the 2 sides that meed this criterion? I think a better visualization of the problem is "you can't cross a canyon in less than a single bound". Sometimes there is no meeting half way. Last but not least, compromising is sometimes not an option. It's like the paradox of tolerance where the only thing you have to be…
There is no such thing as "hate speech." It has no legal or rational construction. Hurt feelings and strenuous objections are no basis for law.
It's quite bizarre, the way YouTube works. I will watch a video that covers something like climate change and immediately I am bombarded in my recommendations with left leaning news clips and stories, the same goes for when I watch a video that could be considered conservative, right away I am suggested videos like "Professor puts liberal sjw student in her place - compilation."
This was addressed more broadly in "We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads" by Zeynep Tufekci on TED. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891014 She remarked that Youtube's recommendation system invariably pushes people towards more extreme views on anything , not just politics. Interested in vegetarianism? Here's something about veganism. She has a hypothesis it works this way because the goal…
Elon Musk and Nick Bostrom were mocked for warning about the dangers of powerful future AI. I've said this here before, the primary use cases of machine learning right now, today, are hostile. That does not bode well for our future. We have very manipulative advertising, mass surveillance used to put ethnic and religious minorities in concentration camps in China, and in YouTube's case, recommending a lot of totally…
This was addressed more broadly in "We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads" by Zeynep Tufekci on TED. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891014 She remarked that Youtube's recommendation system invariably pushes people towards more extreme views on anything , not just politics. Interested in vegetarianism? Here's something about veganism. She has a hypothesis it works this way because the goal…
I found an alternate explaination which hadn't occured to me at the time. It's not necessarily that most people don't like balanced views. It may be just most people aren't excited by balanced views. Extreme views are more emotion provoking, even if you disagree with them. But if the algorithm actually sends you nothing but extreme views, you may eventually start having doubts and become a new convert. The joke's on…
More extreme stuff gets viewed more. More views means more ad revenue and a higher tier. That only incentivize people to make even more extreme stuff.
When these were webpages with a handful of a handful of ads didn’t matter that much. Now one of the largest media platforms on the planet is actively pushing this stuff (unintentionally) at everyone so it’s actually having an effect.