https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/13/reveal_all_recommendation_algorithms/ [user] [user] Sign in / up The Register(r) -- Biting the hand that feeds IT [magn] [burg] [burg] Topics Security Security All SecurityCyber-crimePatchesResearchCSO (X) Off-Prem Off-Prem All Off-PremEdge + IoTChannelPaaS + IaaSSaaS (X) On-Prem On-Prem All On-PremSystemsStorageNetworksHPCPersonal Tech (X) Software Software All SoftwareAI + MLApplicationsDatabasesDevOpsOSesVirtualization (X) Offbeat Offbeat All OffbeatDebatesColumnistsScienceGeek's GuideBOFHLegalBootnotesSite NewsAbout Us (X) Special Features Special Features Spotlight on Databases Defense Tech Week Energy Efficient Datacenters Vendor Voice Vendor Voice Vendor Voice All Vendor VoiceAmazon Web Services (AWS) Business TransformationDDN ElasticGoogle Cloud for Startups (X) Resources Resources Whitepapers Webinars Newsletters [front] Software 29 comment bubble on white It's time to reveal all recommendation algorithms - by law if necessary 29 comment bubble on white We should know why we see what we see, not be left in the dark icon Mark Pesce Thu 13 Apr 2023 // 10:37 UTC # Column As it's been about forty years since I've had pimples, it astounds me that YouTube's recommendation engine recently served me videos of people with some really severe skin problems - generally on their noses. The preview images themselves are horrifying, and should really come with some sort of content warning. I immediately tell YouTube "I don't want this" and "never recommend this channel." Yet it persists. How? Why? [front] I've never watched a dermatology video in all of my years using YouTube, nor do I or anyone I know have an adjacent skin condition that might at some point suggest to the algorithm that I needed to be exposed to these truly can-not-be-unseen video images. [front] [front] The essential nature of a recommendation algorithm is that it's doing its best to anticipate your desires from whatever bits of data it can gather about you. I defend myself from arbitrary data collection that fuels the algorithms using PiHole, the tracker-blocking Disconnect plugin, and Firefox, plus a few other tricks. In theory recommendation algorithms therefore have less to work with than if I simply journaled my every activity via some sort of oh-so-friendly-and-rapacious Android smartphone. [front] I make an active effort to resist data collection - and perhaps these horrors are one consequence. At best that's a guess, because I have no way to know what goes on at the heart of YouTube's recommendation algorithm. If ever exposed, that closely guarded algorithm could be gamed - in a manner similar to the way so many marketing bottom feeders continually test and game search engine results. There's a profound commercial disincentive for YouTube to become transparent about how its algorithm works. [front] That leaves me and other privacy conscious folk with just one lever to pull offer - disliking a video and a channel and hoping that - somehow - the algorithm might be able to intuit a generalized case from a specific instance. In the one example where we've been exposed to the inner workings of a recommendation engine - Twitter went public with theirs at the end of March - we got an eyeful of a different kind of horror: an algorithm that promoted owner Elon Musk's tweets above all others, promoted specific political interests - and that specifically will not promote tweets directly pointing to LGBTIQ+ words, concerns, or themes. While we can all have a nice laugh at Elon's profoundly public narcissism, the silencing of an entire community at a moment in history when forces around the world seek to roll back recent gains in civil rights for LGBTIQ+ individuals is not funny. Where it becomes harder to share one's own story, that story can be framed as marginal, unimportant - even dangerous. It's a profound 'othering' that can, thanks to an algorithm, be greatly amplified. * Once AI can create endless viral videos, good luck switching off social media * Conversational AI tells us what we want to hear - a fib that the Web is reliable and friendly * AI may finally cure us of our data fetish * Voice assistants failed because they serve their makers more than they help users The solution to both issues is obvious, technically easy, and yet commercially a nearly impossible proposition: open up all recommendation algorithms. Make them completely transparent, and, for the individual being targeted by the recommendation engine, completely programmable. I should not only be able to interrogate how I got a horrifying video of a very bad case of pimples, I should be able to get in there and tune things so that the algorithm no longer needs to guess my needs, because I have had the opportunity to make those needs clear. Every algorithm that recommends things to us - music or movies or podcasts or stories or news reports - should be completely visible. There must be nothing secret behind the scenes, because we know now from countless examples - the biggest and ugliest being Cambridge Analytica - how recommendations can be used to drive us to extremes of belief, emotion - even action. That's too much power to leave with an algorithm, and too much control to cede to those who tend those algorithms. If recommendation algos aren't shared then we need - by legislation, if necessary - a switch that turns the recommendation engine off. That might leave us floating in a vast and unknowable sea of content, but it's better to know you're nowhere than to be led down a garden path. (r) Get our Tech Resources # Share Similar topics * AI * Algorithm * Youtube More like these x Similar topics * AI * Algorithm * Youtube Narrower topics * Google AI * GPT-3 * Large Language Model * Machine Learning * MCubed * NLP * Star Wars * Tensor Processing Unit Broader topics * Self-driving Car Similar topics # Share 29 comment bubble on white COMMENTS Similar topics * AI * Algorithm * Youtube More like these x Similar topics * AI * Algorithm * Youtube Narrower topics * Google AI * GPT-3 * Large Language Model * Machine Learning * MCubed * NLP * Star Wars * Tensor Processing Unit Broader topics * Self-driving Car TIP US OFF Send us news --------------------------------------------------------------------- Other stories you might like Corporate investment in AI down for first time in a decade Fewer newly funded startups too, according to report AI + ML5 Apr 2023 | 4 'Slow AI' needed to stop autonomous weapons making humans worse It's you, hi, you're the problem, it's you Defense Tech Week4 Apr 2023 | 20 Don't worry, folks, here comes Chuck Schumer with some ideas about regulating AI As Europe forms task force to steer probes into ChatGPT AI + ML13 Apr 2023 | Power to the engineering people Amazon EC2 Hpc6id instances are tailor made for complex FEA workloads Sponsored Feature [front] Google Cloud pitches 'Gen Apps' - low-code AI-based tools, not post-millennial kids We've got your summarization, your Q&A, your chatbots, your classification tasks ready to go Off-Prem30 Mar 2023 | 7 Uncle Sam threatens AI with its nastiest weapon: An audit Commerce Dept knows it needs to know more as it ponders regulation AI + ML11 Apr 2023 | 9 Plagiarism-sniffing Turnitin tries to find AI writing by students - with mixed grades Updated Claims 98% confidence, tests suggest a human touch will beat the teachers AI + ML5 Apr 2023 | 42 Google denies Bard trained using OpenAI ChatGPT responses In brief ALSO: Synopsys releases AI tools for faster chip design, and Cerebras open sources family of language models AI + ML3 Apr 2023 | 16 Beijing lists the stuff it wants generative AI to censor If it reflects 'core values of socialism' it'll be fine. 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