[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.