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Is it unethical to create an automated system that maximizes global unhappiness for profit?
When a movie makes the audience sad, it wins Oscars, we don't censor it. Why should the rules be different for Facebook?
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Feel the same. HN is exactly the same as Reddit, just a different crowd and less edge. It's nice to think that you can have a civil discussion on the HN platform but you can't. The whole internet karma/points is a flawed system. For HN: You should have to give a reason to down votes. To give someone downvote permissions and then allow them to downvote on something they bias, isn't far.
> For HN: You should have to give a reason to down votes. To give someone downvote permissions and then allow them to downvote on something they bias, isn't far. Because no one would ever lie or put noise in the "why I downvoted" field.
See downvoted already, point proven.
Product Person #1: Hey, here’s a writeup that says if we show too many positive posts to people that it creates bad feelings. Should we show less positive posts? Product Person #2: Not sure, wouldn’t negative posts make people feel worse? Product Person #1: Wow, I donno, maybe we should try adjusting additional posts people see one way a bit and see what happens? Product Person #2: Not a bad idea, how about we try bo…
That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics
There was a specific task force at Facebook intended to better understand customer psychology. Came from them.
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Let's imagine hypothetically that sad, negative posts get more engagement by whatever metric Facebook uses, and Facebook was paying no attention to sentiments at all and ending up putting more sad posts on feeds. Would that have been unethical? I can't really see what would be so different.
Is it unethical to create an automated system that maximizes global unhappiness for profit?
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It's technically correct but implies malicious intent. It's like saying "Pfizer deliberately injected a substance in people that kills them" to describe a failed drug trial.
Except people have to give consent for drug trials
Product Person #1: Hey, here’s a writeup that says if we show too many positive posts to people that it creates bad feelings. Should we show less positive posts? Product Person #2: Not sure, wouldn’t negative posts make people feel worse? Product Person #1: Wow, I donno, maybe we should try adjusting additional posts people see one way a bit and see what happens? Product Person #2: Not a bad idea, how about we try bo…
That's the definition of an unethical experiment design and would be considered academic misconduct if that were academic work. Regardless of intent, fb probably shouldn't be allowing front end devs to design psychological experiments at mass scale. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Experimental_ethics
This is similar to claiming that traffic experiments which change the flow of cars, in term causing some people to experience more traffic and become unhappy, are unethical. Do you think traffic experiments are unethical?
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Let's imagine hypothetically that sad, negative posts get more engagement by whatever metric Facebook uses, and Facebook was paying no attention to sentiments at all and ending up putting more sad posts on feeds. Would that have been unethical? I can't really see what would be so different.
Yes, that would be deeply unethical. And to make matters worse, I believe that’s a fairly accurate description of how Facebook works.
I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…
Social media algorithms are designed to show you things which make you upset because that type of content is highly likely to "engage."
Or are people actually selecting specifically upsetting stuff?
I noticed during the election that whenever I glanced at the fb "watch" video section, it was videos of guys getting into fist fights, or videos containing disturbing violence. I don't ever watch or search for videos like this, so it's not like it was selected based on my watch history or something. At the time, I figured it was a psychological trick to suck me into viewing more ads since violence has that "can't loo…
Social media algorithms are designed to show you things which make you upset because that type of content is highly likely to "engage."