Recommendation Algorithms Are a Necessary Evil (Sort Of)

I like the way Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom put it when discussing the recent launch of his news recommendation app Artifact. “[B]uilding the algorithm is enormously editorial. Because what you choose to train your algorithm on—the objective function, the data you put in, the data you include, the data you don’t include—is

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Companies will deploy AI recommendations to incentivize people to scroll, swipe, and watch for longer. It is rare that someone says, “I am so glad I spent an extra 15 minutes on TikTok today,” but that is what the system is optimized for. The downsides are fairly obvious—at their extreme, ad models can foster  misinformation and out

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