What do you think is the main issue preventing companies from making more ethical recommendation algorithms? Is it the difficulty of determining objectively what is accurate and ethical? Or is it more about the incentives, like an unwillingness to sacrifice addictiveness and part of their audience?
I think incentives. Based on my recent reading of ‘The Chaos Machine’ by Max Fisher, I think it’s closely linked to continually increasing engagement driving profit. Addictiveness unfortunately leads to more engagement, which in turn leads to profit. Emotive content (clickbait style, extreme things) also increase engagement.
Tools and moderation processes might be expensive on their own, but I think it’s when they start to challenge the underlying business model of ‘More engagement = more profit’ that the companies are in a more uncomfortable position.
What do you think is the main issue preventing companies from making more ethical recommendation algorithms? Is it the difficulty of determining objectively what is accurate and ethical? Or is it more about the incentives, like an unwillingness to sacrifice addictiveness and part of their audience?
I think incentives. Based on my recent reading of ‘The Chaos Machine’ by Max Fisher, I think it’s closely linked to continually increasing engagement driving profit. Addictiveness unfortunately leads to more engagement, which in turn leads to profit. Emotive content (clickbait style, extreme things) also increase engagement.
Tools and moderation processes might be expensive on their own, but I think it’s when they start to challenge the underlying business model of ‘More engagement = more profit’ that the companies are in a more uncomfortable position.
Unfortunately this is a fundamental problem of Media, imo.