[aviraldg]

> disproportionately harm trans people and be used to emotionally manipulate all of us

I see this claim frequently being made in such contexts, but it's never explained. Spotify playing music that matches your mood hurts trans people?

[snicksnak]

This trope is everywhere now. I see this so often now where high profile substack writers are constantly being smeared as transphobic. It's a tactic, and defense and offense strategy and I'm tired of it. Can't take anyone serious anymore how writes something like that.

[Spivak]

Or you could be charitable to the author and at least try to understand their view instead of assuming that it’s some cold political move.

Machine learning detection of people’s gender in the real world is anywhere from annoying to distressing to trans people because all the training data is cis people and so they get matched with their AGAB. Can you imagine how terrible it would be to already hate and be super self-conscious about your voice only to have Spotify start telling you via recommendations that you don’t pass well enough. Yikes.

[hayyyyydos]

> Can you imagine how terrible it would be to already hate and be super self-conscious about your voice only to have Spotify start telling you via recommendations that you don’t pass well enough.

Although the patent may be creepy...

The text of the patent refers to media recommendation (not advertising) - contrary to the sibling comment where you claim it will result in ads for Dollar Shave Club, the patent does not once use the term "advertising". Sure, it could be used for that, but I don't think that's the main intention at all.

How are you going to know that Spotify has recommended you a song based on your gender? Are we assigning genders to songs now? Straight white cis males can like Aqua's "Barbie Girl", too.

[Spivak]

> Are we assigning genders to songs now? Straight white cis males can like Aqua's "Barbie Girl", too.

This is an absurd take. Do you see no difference between Spotify recommending songs to a trans woman based on what men with similar music tastes in her area and age group are listening to and "assigning gender to songs?"

Spotify also typically recommends you playlists rather than songs and my home page is extremely gendered. I get playlists like "You Go Girl", "Girls Like You", "Women of Rock", "Fierce Femmes." A trans guy getting these kinds of recommendations would be ... well odd.

[hayyyyydos]

You don't need to be a woman to enjoy a "Women in Hip Hop" playlist. Spotify isn't about what it thinks you are. It's about what it thinks you want to listen to.

[marcus_holmes]

> It's about what it thinks you want to listen to.

At the moment, but I think the idea behind this patent is that it can factor in your mood (and other factors, such as gender) into the recommendation engine as well as what you already like.

Though I don't see gender being much of a signal. My GF and I have exactly the same taste in music (well, she doesn't like Classical that much, and I don't like Musicals, and she's more into Goth/Industrial/Metal than I am, but it's a 90% match). Anecdata, but that's all I have.

[Spivak]

And what it thinks you want to listen to is based on what it gender it thinks you are. Gender is a strong signal about what your music tastes will be but obviously it's not absolute. If the algorithm is so pure and unbiased then why would it even want to determine your gender with this patent?

Like recommendation engines aren't magic -- they look at what people "like you" listen to where "like you" has all sorts of random demographic data as well as your personal patterns/history.

[nerdponx]

Imagine the algorithm recommending hip-hop because you have dark skin and African-like facial features.

It's maybe not that bad of the grand scheme of things, but it's inarguably racist.

[hayyyyydos]

Check out the start of the next paragraph

> Queer indie-punk musician and Fight for the Future director Evan Greer has released a new music video for the song “Surveillance Capitalism,” ahead of the release of the album Spotify is Surveillance.

That raised a red flag for me. Why is this person's gender identity in any way relevant to the issue at hand?

In the same way the text calls out emotion recognition software as "racist pseudoscience" (then linking to an article about facial recognition) - which doesn't have much at all to do with the patent.

Bought to you by the "Union of Musicians" - the same people who claim Spotify make "enormous profits" (I wouldn't call them enormous) and want 1 cent per play.

They want Spotify to pay them, but they also want to damage Spotify's reputation? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot

Further to that, check out the Union of Musicians' subcommittees [1] - there's a "Classical Music Accountability" subcommittee (classical music = white supremacy?)... and a Police Abolition committee, of course.

[1] https://www.unionofmusicians.org/subcommittees

[cumwolf]

There are definitely elements of racism rooted in Classical music. Classical music is not something that was historically accessible to the masses. Minorities have not always been allowed to participate in it the same way White people were allowed to. with a quick internet search you can find out more from more legitimate sources.

[hayyyyydos]

It's interesting because it's the first time I've thought about it (not a big listener of classical music) - but whether or not classical music is racist isn't really why I bought that one up.

The group seems to be sidetracked with every single cause, a subcommittee for every minority group... which, to me, takes away from the main purpose of a Union of Musicians - getting paid/treated properly (as a whole).

Which just reminds me of how this webpage gets sidetracked from the main issue. The main issue should be: listening in on conversations is creepy.

[Spivak]

Spotify’s algorithms try to detect your gender as part of the profile they build about you. The training data will be all cis people and so trans people are likely going to get matched against their AGAB. This really sucks for trans people to have some system they have no influence over constantly serving them ads and music targeted at an identity that causes them distress.

A trans woman constantly getting ads for dollar shave club, Nivia for men, and Weezer is hugely invalidating simply because some machine learning algorithm says she sounds like a man. Good god imagine having to perform a stereotypical version of your gender identity for your phone just to get the recommendations you want.

[marcus_holmes]

Pretty sure Spotify will mess this up regardless of actual gender. I live in Germany but only speak English. Spotify can't work out what language to serve anything to me in.