[causal]

Something important to keep in mind: most people never experience just how twisted these recommendation algorithms can get, because each of us gets an experience tailored to our developed tastes.

But these algorithms will totally curate wildly disturbing playlists of content because it has learned that this can be incredibly addicting to minds unprepared for it.

And what's most sinister is how opaque the process is, to the degree that a parent can't track what is happening without basically watching their kids activity full-time.

Idk if OFCOM is implementing this right or not, but I think there would be a much greater outcry if more people saw the breadth of these algorithms' toxicity.

[geor9e]

If, instead of a machine algorithm, we wired newborn human brain in a jar and "trained it" to choose the next thing to show in a feed, to get nothing but reward for when someone clicks/comments/lingers on something, and nothing but punishment when they leave, plus the basic human functions of walking and talking etc, then put that brain into an adult human body, what would we describe that person as? Probably a psychopath with no moral compass? A sicko willing to do indescribable horrors? Evil incanate? A calculating manipulator for sure. But somehow when we "train" a machine model with singular goal of profit alignment, people think that's just the free and efficient market. And the idea of aligning the models with human good instead is seen as overregulation.