Forget Privacy: You're Terrible at Targeting Anyway

I’d be even more aware from now on! I’d remember that machine learning has been defined by the people who want me to believe it works the way they say it does. But an algorithm can’t really observe anything. So it can’t really measure my behavior, and so it can’t really discover anything for me, or about me!

Faced with opaque systems operated by wealthy global companies, it is hardly surprising that many assume the lack of transparency exists to serve the interests of technology elites and not users. In the long run, people are only going to feel comfortable with these algorithmic systems if they have more visibility into how they work and then have th... See more

The effectiveness of this approach varies widely. Why does a playlist generated off a single song on Spotify work so well and yet its podcast recommendations feel generic? Why, after spending years and millions of dollars on research, including the fabled Netflix prize, do Netflix's recommendations still feel generic, and why doesn't it really matt... See more