The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence • Hacker News Board

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#41

Post by 3steve » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

Varcht wrote: post #17

3steve wrote: post #9

I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. I want to see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise.

I like(d) the raw news feeds from AP etc. I say liked because they all seem to be disappearing. Just give me a long list of the incoming headlines, I'll filter by scanning, thanks.

I am hesitant about raw news, I think context is at a minimum important. I would much rather read an article published 12-36 hours after the fact that is rich with context and detail. I have blocked CNN from my feeds for this reason, they place a high value on immediacy and I think this heavily degrades their content.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#42

Post by combatentropy » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

kevincox wrote: post #6

The thing that gets me about Google news is that the personalization is incredibly coarse. I can see a "17 apps that take great selfies" article and the only way to express disinterest is by removing Android from my interest list. I might dislike an article because the publisher is low quality or I'm not interesting in one aspect of the content but it just picks one "reson" to justify showing the article.

From the article:

  > We’ve also built easy-to-use and easy-to-access controls
  > so you can decide if you want to see more or less of a topic or publisher.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#43

Post by thankthunk » Wed, May 09, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #29

thankthunk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want personalized news, I use Google News for the exact opposite reason. That's what I used to use google news for too. Then a few years ago, google "personalized" and "localize"d news to your area and it became pointless. Google news was especially great for international events in the early 2010s because you'd get international sources listed back then. So you could see the difference in coverage between…

> Now, google news is just mostly NYTimes and Washingtonpost stories. What? This is certainly not my experience. I just went to news.google.com in my desktop browser, and I clicked on the World section. On the Iran sanctions/deal story, there are several sources grouped together in one card. The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as…

> What? This is certainly not my experience.

Your comment describes the experience to the tee.

> The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as "From Iran"),

Where are you from? In the NY area, all I see is US related. A couple of washingtonpost, a couple of nytimes, rolling stone, cnn, etc. Even in the expanded "view full coverage", I don't see mehr news.

> Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as "Opinion"), NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press.

So, no diversity? They all are essential one news agency masquerading as different news. Yes, even the australian source.

How about this, I wish I had better access to different echo chambers.

Reuters, The Hill, RollingStone.com, NYT (highlighted as "Opinion"), NEWS.com.au, and Associated Press along with the nytimes and washingtonpost are part of the same echo chamber. They all push the same message. I want to see what the other nations/regions are saying. I want different opinions/perspectives/news.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#44

Post by danso » Wed, May 09, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #31

danso wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your objection. The Politifact assessment of "pants on fire" is not for the public official, it's for the conspiracy websites that are peddling the public official's mistake to intentionally mislead people. Read the end of the article ("Our ruling"): > A website pushing conspiracy theories claimed that the March For Our Lives permit was actually prepared months in advance. > We contacted the police…

Well for starters, they haven't ignored the correction. https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-curiou... It's a valid question: large events like this march require considerable coordination among public services and permits are necessary to make sure that police and EMS and public transport can react, and navigating the bureaucratic machine for getting a permit is, by official D.C. guidelines, estimat…

> and navigating the bureaucratic machine for getting a permit is, by official D.C. guidelines, estimated to take at least 6 months

The March for Science, which originated largely from a Reddit thread, happened in 4 months: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Science

The Women's March was organized in 2.5 months: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March

edit: In the "update" post, the blogger of the allegation basically ignores the explanations for the confusion and goes with the conspiracy. At that point, I think it's reasonable for Politifact to say the blogger is acting in bad faith:

> Given the different dates he’s given for when Metro PD received the permit application and when Metro PD issued the permit, we have no reason to believe Officer Scott Earhardt. In all probability, his first email of March 28 to Dammegard’s contact is most likely the truthful one — that D.C. Metropolitan Police Department received an application for a permit for March For Our Lives “several months” before the March. That in turn implies that, contrary to how the March had been presented to the American people, the Parkland school shooting is not the inspiration for March For Our Lives and may even have been planned and contrived.

https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/05/parklathe-curiou...

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#45

Post by MR4D » Wed, May 09, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

thankthunk wrote: post #43

adrianmonk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, google news is just mostly NYTimes and Washingtonpost stories. What? This is certainly not my experience. I just went to news.google.com in my desktop browser, and I clicked on the World section. On the Iran sanctions/deal story, there are several sources grouped together in one card. The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as…

> What? This is certainly not my experience. Your comment describes the experience to the tee. > The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as "From Iran"), Where are you from? In the NY area, all I see is US related. A couple of washingtonpost, a couple of nytimes, rolling stone, cnn, etc. Even in the expanded "view full coverage", I d…

You might want to try this:

https://news.google.co.uk/

Not perfect, but at least it brings more viewpoints.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#46

Post by bbitmaster » Wed, May 09, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

croon wrote: post #10

fareesh wrote: post #4

Disappointing to see that it relies on Snopes for "fact checking". Also disappointing to see that what constitutes "quality journalism" is decided by a giant technology company. This is a big step backwards.

Have any examples of things they've gotten wrong?

Snopes is very quick to claim things as "False" if it goes against their left leaning lens of the world.

As an example arguments used by pro-gun advocates are marked as false. Here's a specific example:

They falsify a claim that doctors kill more people than guns https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/doctors-kill-more-people-t...

Yet this article linked on hacker news article states that medical error is the third biggest cause of death in the USA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213

I used to have many more examples, but the reality is that the facts that they "objectively" check aren't necessarily unbiased.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#47

Post by skybrian » Wed, May 09, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #14

ucaetano wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise Isn't that exactly personalized news? But you can just load it on incognito or signed out and not have any personalization other than location/country.

What a horrible UX, loading it in “Incognito mode”, no.

It's quite useful! These days I browse pretty much all news sites in Incognito mode, due to paywalls.

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#48

Post by gowld » Wed, May 09, 2018, 5:27 AM UTC

3steve wrote: post #35

adrianmonk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, google news is just mostly NYTimes and Washingtonpost stories. What? This is certainly not my experience. I just went to news.google.com in my desktop browser, and I clicked on the World section. On the Iran sanctions/deal story, there are several sources grouped together in one card. The top source is indeed Washington post but the same card also contains coverage from Mehr News Agency (which it highlights as…

This was not my experience, my feed has been flooded by NYT and WSP stories. This normally wouldn't be a problem but these stories are often different takes on current events and the algorithm is bad serving related articles for these stories. The result is a feed full meta analysis about the news without the actual news.

> meta analysis about the news

aka "opinion" aka "blogging" aka "less expensive and more eye-catching than finding and reporting facts"

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#49

Post by gowld » Wed, May 09, 2018, 5:29 AM UTC

3steve wrote: post #39

ucaetano wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> see semi-random headlines from a variety of source to increase my exposure to stories I might not have seen otherwise Isn't that exactly personalized news? But you can just load it on incognito or signed out and not have any personalization other than location/country.

Personalization does not arise from passive use. Consider the converse, articles from a list of user selected sources. That sounds more like personalized news. Besides Google News used to function that way so I think I should be entitled to my opinion of how it should function.

https://news.google.com/news/settings/sources ?

Re: The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

#50

Post by gowld » Wed, May 09, 2018, 5:30 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #32

forapurpose wrote: post #25

> And if you want to support your favorite news sources, we’ve made it simple to subscribe with your Google account. This means no more forms, credit card numbers, or new passwords. And soon, thanks to the new Subscribe with Google platform (launched as a part of the Google News Initiative), you’ll get access to your paid content everywhere—on all platforms and devices, on Google News, Google Search, and on publisher…

All I want is an option to pay $10/mo for news to all sources, and let each publisher receive the proportion of that that my clicks determine.

That's less than the price of any single news source. Why would they offer that price to you?