Algorithmic fatigue is real – here’s how to combat it
May 11, 2021 10:36 PM Subscribe
Endless scrolling. That’s one of the telltale signs of a novel phenomenon new research identifies as algorithmic fatigue. People who spend ages browsing streaming services, looking for something new to watch, are some of the many examples of the growing numbers of consumers who are now finding that AI systems fall short.
When the algorithm fails to live up to people’s expectations of the user experience, and doesn’t deliver the service its users want, the people using the system end up feeling annoyed, frustrated, and fatigued.
Brands are slowly waking up to the same realization: AI is no longer just about the technology; it’s about how humans experience and interact with the algorithms.
.... Ultimately, it’s about creating parity: granting the users equal agency over decision making by allowing them to choose and change when they want to be actively involved in the algorithm or just passively guided by it.
On first blush I thought, “these researchers are clearly too young to have spent a Friday evening wandering the aisles of Blockbuster with their friends” but on rtfa it appears they’re just too Finnish to have done so.
posted by turbowombat at 10:49 PM on May 11, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by turbowombat at 10:49 PM on May 11, 2021 [13 favorites]
honestly, I don't want the algorithms to get better, smarter, more parative. Keep them mostly stupid. Humanity ends up doing better in the long run, I suspect.
posted by philip-random at 10:54 PM on May 11, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 10:54 PM on May 11, 2021 [9 favorites]
I'd be cool with an algorithm that decides that the stunt bedroom guitarist video I watched means "send more guitar videos", not "fill this person's recommendations with all the videos from that one guy". Same deal as that tweet about ordering a toilet seat from Amazon.
posted by thelonius at 11:08 PM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 11:08 PM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
What about the fatigue of trying to figure out what one did to skew the algorithm to make certain suggestions? For about a week YouTube has been trying to get me to watch some mortician videos and I can't for the life of me understand why. I told the app not to suggest this channel anymore and now they're trying to feed me some Wired video featuring a mortician. This is way creepier than the period when YouTube figured I was super into airplanes for some reason. (I half suspect the reason has something to do with clicking on videos from this site, was there a recent thread on the funerary industry or something that I missed?)
posted by St. Oops at 11:11 PM on May 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 11:11 PM on May 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
I really wish the article went deeper into the differences between passive, guiding and collaborative AI, with examples.
I’ve been trying to get the Lunchclub AI to respond for weeks to my desire to NOT meet UX people and it’s been interesting yet so tiring. Not sure if that AI falls into the guiding or collaborative camp, but it’s failing at it. I adore Lunchclub so I’m sticking with it. We’ll learn eventually.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:35 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’ve been trying to get the Lunchclub AI to respond for weeks to my desire to NOT meet UX people and it’s been interesting yet so tiring. Not sure if that AI falls into the guiding or collaborative camp, but it’s failing at it. I adore Lunchclub so I’m sticking with it. We’ll learn eventually.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:35 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
My favourite run in with the Algos that now direct us...
During the past year due to lockdowns, I, like so many others, have done very little socialising. The only two trips I have made have been to walk to a mate's place some 45 mins away. This mate has a lovely apartment, that happens to be above a sex shop. Now Google Maps helpfully highlights all nearby sex shops anytime I open the app, as it has me pegged as an enthusiastic ambulatory sex-quester.
posted by Gratishades at 11:51 PM on May 11, 2021 [88 favorites]
During the past year due to lockdowns, I, like so many others, have done very little socialising. The only two trips I have made have been to walk to a mate's place some 45 mins away. This mate has a lovely apartment, that happens to be above a sex shop. Now Google Maps helpfully highlights all nearby sex shops anytime I open the app, as it has me pegged as an enthusiastic ambulatory sex-quester.
posted by Gratishades at 11:51 PM on May 11, 2021 [88 favorites]
The only thing worse than having poor AI is having no AI at all.
I strongly disagree.
posted by terretu at 12:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [42 favorites]
I strongly disagree.
posted by terretu at 12:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [42 favorites]
I recently got into a situation where Spotify wanted to play me lofi beats. In fact, Spotify assumed I was so fond of lofi beats it ONLY wanted me to play lofi beats. No generated playlist was safe! After two months of fighting I ended up cancelling my Spotify account, because there wasn’t a slider that I could adjust. Which leads me to ask: why are there no options to control the AI in these accounts? Is it because they’re sold as magnificent choice arbiters, or is it because these systems are as wonky as they come, and twiddling the knobs will make them fall over?
posted by The River Ivel at 12:38 AM on May 12, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 12:38 AM on May 12, 2021 [15 favorites]
Gratishades, you win the double entendre of the week award for saying that Google Maps highlighting sex shops on your route means the app is, ahem, pegging you.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:07 AM on May 12, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 1:07 AM on May 12, 2021 [32 favorites]
About five years ago, i spent all of one month in Australia. The Guardian's website seems to think I'm still there, as it continues to pack the page with stories about Australian politics whenever I go to its "World News" section. And that's after FIVE YEARS during which I've taken no particular interest in Australia at all.
Also, despite the fact that I've bought a lot of music from Amazon, it still has no idea what my taste is. Most of the stuff it suggests I'd like in I find either completely irrelevant or - more often than you'd think - actively insulting. That's a glitch I quite like, though, as it suggests the algorithm isn't quite as all-powerful as some would have us believe.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:12 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, despite the fact that I've bought a lot of music from Amazon, it still has no idea what my taste is. Most of the stuff it suggests I'd like in I find either completely irrelevant or - more often than you'd think - actively insulting. That's a glitch I quite like, though, as it suggests the algorithm isn't quite as all-powerful as some would have us believe.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:12 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
I quit Instagram simply because the non-(reverse-)chronological feed was hurting my autistic/anxious/OCD brain. People were posting their lives in order and I was receiving them all fubar’d, and I didn’t have the ability to change that.
Instagram is not a social space; it is a casino masquerading as one, with all the manipulative dark patterns taken from behaviorist psychology that a casino has to maximise addiction (“engagement”).
Mark Zuckerberg is in the same line of work as Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson and so on.
posted by acb at 1:53 AM on May 12, 2021 [21 favorites]
Instagram is not a social space; it is a casino masquerading as one, with all the manipulative dark patterns taken from behaviorist psychology that a casino has to maximise addiction (“engagement”).
Mark Zuckerberg is in the same line of work as Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson and so on.
posted by acb at 1:53 AM on May 12, 2021 [21 favorites]
About five years ago, i spent all of one month in Australia. The Guardian's website seems to think I'm still there, as it continues to pack the page with stories about Australian politics whenever I go to its "World News" section.
The Guardian forces loads of Australia content on me too, and I've never been there. I think it's just that they have a big Australia division (80 staff!). So they have huge quantities of content to inflict on everyone.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:36 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Guardian forces loads of Australia content on me too, and I've never been there. I think it's just that they have a big Australia division (80 staff!). So they have huge quantities of content to inflict on everyone.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:36 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I recently got into a situation where Spotify wanted to play me lofi beats. In fact, Spotify assumed I was so fond of lofi beats it ONLY wanted me to play lofi beats. No generated playlist was safe! After two months of fighting I ended up cancelling my Spotify account, because there wasn’t a slider that I could adjust. Which leads me to ask: why are there no options to control the AI in these accounts? Is it because they’re sold as magnificent choice arbiters, or is it because these systems are as wonky as they come, and twiddling the knobs will make them fall over?
My guess is that the people behind the lofi beats had made a big buy of slots in users' feeds, and that Spotify was sticking those suggestions wherever they could. At the moment YouTube is trying to force right wing content like Project Veritas on me. I must have told them not to show me those channels 50 times in the last three weeks, but new and more subtle, not identifiable as right wing from thumb and title videos show up every day. There’s no way Google isn’t taking money to do this, but getting rid of them is starting to feel like shooting skeet.
I’ve noticed that if I do click on one just to plumb the depths of American stupidity for a few moments, and hit the dislike button, all the videos from that channel are gone when I navigate back to the home page, and from this I've concluded that Google doesn’t like it when I delete a channel, and it somehow hurts their revenue, which gives me a tiny increment of satisfaction when I reject an entire channel.
In short, AIs aren’t adjustable because they don’t want you to be able to drive away their advertisers by expressing your loathing for the crap they’re trying to sell.
posted by jamjam at 2:48 AM on May 12, 2021 [22 favorites]
My guess is that the people behind the lofi beats had made a big buy of slots in users' feeds, and that Spotify was sticking those suggestions wherever they could. At the moment YouTube is trying to force right wing content like Project Veritas on me. I must have told them not to show me those channels 50 times in the last three weeks, but new and more subtle, not identifiable as right wing from thumb and title videos show up every day. There’s no way Google isn’t taking money to do this, but getting rid of them is starting to feel like shooting skeet.
I’ve noticed that if I do click on one just to plumb the depths of American stupidity for a few moments, and hit the dislike button, all the videos from that channel are gone when I navigate back to the home page, and from this I've concluded that Google doesn’t like it when I delete a channel, and it somehow hurts their revenue, which gives me a tiny increment of satisfaction when I reject an entire channel.
In short, AIs aren’t adjustable because they don’t want you to be able to drive away their advertisers by expressing your loathing for the crap they’re trying to sell.
posted by jamjam at 2:48 AM on May 12, 2021 [22 favorites]
Addressing algorithmic fatigue starts with taking AI seriously across the entire organization. The only thing worse than having poor AI is having no AI at all.
I also disagree with this.
I have a Netflix profile that only ever gets used to watch the new She Ra. I've given the 'Thumbs Up' to a dozen or so other series I've watched elsewhere like Sccoby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, Star Trek TNG, Community, and Disenchanted, but as far was watching anything it's been just frequent random She Ra viewings to keep the pandemic despair at bay.
Normally when I log into Netflix, the top banner is trying to recommend something like Legend of Korra or Miraculous or some magical girl anime and although I'm not interested in watching those series, I get why the Netflix algorithm thinks I might. But a couple weeks ago I logged in and the top banner was a trailer for Criminal Minds. I hate Criminal Minds with a passion, and I was so cheesed off that Netflix was suggesting I watch it that I actually contacted technical support and demanded to know why a profile that's only ever watched She Ra is suddenly being recommended Criminal Minds.
Of course technical support was unhelpful. First they kept insisting the recommendation was based on my viewing habits (so you must recommend Criminal Minds to everyone who watches She Ra, then?). Then they kept insisting that it was my problem and if I didn't want to be recommended Criminal Minds, I should use the parental controls and add content restrictions to my account, even though Criminal Minds is bizarrely rated the same (TV-14) as Disenchanted and Community and I might want to watch those shows in the future. While that might be true in some regards, they're still the ones who generate recommendations for me, and I'd really like them to not generate horrifically bad recommendations that based on their supposed methodology have no grounding in reality. And if I was getting recommended Criminal Minds only because it's popular or had some sort of paid-for-placement deal and the algorithm was just lazily throwing it out there, I'd really like to know instead of being treated to another round of bullshit about how intelligent the algorithm is at making suggestions.
Also, fuck YouTube. An anti-vax video with several hundred thousand views popped up in my recommendations last night and I'm still angry about it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:33 AM on May 12, 2021 [14 favorites]
I also disagree with this.
I have a Netflix profile that only ever gets used to watch the new She Ra. I've given the 'Thumbs Up' to a dozen or so other series I've watched elsewhere like Sccoby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, Star Trek TNG, Community, and Disenchanted, but as far was watching anything it's been just frequent random She Ra viewings to keep the pandemic despair at bay.
Normally when I log into Netflix, the top banner is trying to recommend something like Legend of Korra or Miraculous or some magical girl anime and although I'm not interested in watching those series, I get why the Netflix algorithm thinks I might. But a couple weeks ago I logged in and the top banner was a trailer for Criminal Minds. I hate Criminal Minds with a passion, and I was so cheesed off that Netflix was suggesting I watch it that I actually contacted technical support and demanded to know why a profile that's only ever watched She Ra is suddenly being recommended Criminal Minds.
Of course technical support was unhelpful. First they kept insisting the recommendation was based on my viewing habits (so you must recommend Criminal Minds to everyone who watches She Ra, then?). Then they kept insisting that it was my problem and if I didn't want to be recommended Criminal Minds, I should use the parental controls and add content restrictions to my account, even though Criminal Minds is bizarrely rated the same (TV-14) as Disenchanted and Community and I might want to watch those shows in the future. While that might be true in some regards, they're still the ones who generate recommendations for me, and I'd really like them to not generate horrifically bad recommendations that based on their supposed methodology have no grounding in reality. And if I was getting recommended Criminal Minds only because it's popular or had some sort of paid-for-placement deal and the algorithm was just lazily throwing it out there, I'd really like to know instead of being treated to another round of bullshit about how intelligent the algorithm is at making suggestions.
Also, fuck YouTube. An anti-vax video with several hundred thousand views popped up in my recommendations last night and I'm still angry about it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:33 AM on May 12, 2021 [14 favorites]
must have told them not to show me those channels
Did that affordance get moved? All I get now from the (...) next to a sidebar video, where I used to see this, is "Not Interested".
And I still can't find the "Don't show me any videos from any channels run by people who have liked even one Jordan Peterson video" button.......
posted by thelonius at 4:49 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Did that affordance get moved? All I get now from the (...) next to a sidebar video, where I used to see this, is "Not Interested".
And I still can't find the "Don't show me any videos from any channels run by people who have liked even one Jordan Peterson video" button.......
posted by thelonius at 4:49 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
A big part of the problem is not just AI (= machine learning = statistical correlation at massive scales) but AI used adversarially against the user; to profile them and delivering reinforcement at the right intervals to get them hooked on a service, to target advertising they would be most susceptible to (i.e., to surreptitiously influence their decisions), and so on. We need to recognise that a lot of "AI" (particularly on an advertising-funded web) is inherently adversarial if not predatory by design.
posted by acb at 5:02 AM on May 12, 2021 [28 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:02 AM on May 12, 2021 [28 favorites]
The only thing worse than having poor AI is having no AI at all.
The only thing I ever wanted Facebook to do was show my friends' posts in chronological order. All the posts, not some of them. All the friends, not some of them. This does not require "AI" no matter how loosely you define "AI."
The algorithm is not intended to improve user experience, user happiness or user health.
It's intended to optimize "engagement" and thus ad revenue.
For whatever reason, I have not been plagued by this with Instagram's normal feed. The only thing awry there is the images it shows me on the "Search" page, which... mainly are things I have tried to tell it I am not interested in, but that probably counted as engagement and only encouraged it.
Using likes and comments as a means of judging what a person is interested in is deeply flawed. I want to congratulate my friend who just cooked an awesome dinner, I don't want to see random strangers' food photos. I want to show appreciation for the great photos my sister-in-law took on her Maine vacation, not be flooded with photos of bikini models in front of waterfalls in Brazil. I want to show support to Black Lives Matter but I am not, contrary to AI belief, obsessed with Black mens' hairstyles. And because I once posted a picture of a Paradox Arquitecto guitar pedal does not mean I need to see the feeds of two dozen architecture firms.
posted by Foosnark at 5:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [31 favorites]
The only thing I ever wanted Facebook to do was show my friends' posts in chronological order. All the posts, not some of them. All the friends, not some of them. This does not require "AI" no matter how loosely you define "AI."
The algorithm is not intended to improve user experience, user happiness or user health.
It's intended to optimize "engagement" and thus ad revenue.
For whatever reason, I have not been plagued by this with Instagram's normal feed. The only thing awry there is the images it shows me on the "Search" page, which... mainly are things I have tried to tell it I am not interested in, but that probably counted as engagement and only encouraged it.
Using likes and comments as a means of judging what a person is interested in is deeply flawed. I want to congratulate my friend who just cooked an awesome dinner, I don't want to see random strangers' food photos. I want to show appreciation for the great photos my sister-in-law took on her Maine vacation, not be flooded with photos of bikini models in front of waterfalls in Brazil. I want to show support to Black Lives Matter but I am not, contrary to AI belief, obsessed with Black mens' hairstyles. And because I once posted a picture of a Paradox Arquitecto guitar pedal does not mean I need to see the feeds of two dozen architecture firms.
posted by Foosnark at 5:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [31 favorites]
I stopped using Instagram because of the Skinner-box timeline, unblockable video ads (a consent violation; I didn't willingly tithe a few hundred megabytes of my dwindling phone storage to Zuck for video ads) and general aura of casino-like predatory sleaziness. Of course, this means that nobody who knows me actually sees any photos I take unless I send them to them in a direct message, but there's a lot of varyingly weird old men on Flickr who favourite them emphatically.
posted by acb at 5:27 AM on May 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:27 AM on May 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
On the one hand there is a real balance problem to solve: I would have stuck with FB more if it were possible to have a chronological timeline based on all friends BUT I have a few friends who are super-sharers who end up clogging the feed if there's no way to say "see less from this person." But the real problem is a feed like that is for the pleasure of the user, not the pleasure of the monetizer. I keep thinking "how much would a non-creepy social media platform have to cost the user per month"? But so much depends on scale it's kind of a moot question.
posted by rikschell at 5:39 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:39 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm with Jamjam, the biggest issue isn't that algorithms aren't perfect, it's that they aren't only optimizing for what the user wants. The priorities of the platform and its advertisers are in there too. Maybe it was beyond the scope of the article but I wish they would question their premises a bit more.
That said the linked study about the different ways we interact with AI and how we want different things depending on context was interesting. I hope to find time to read that full report.
posted by Wretch729 at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
That said the linked study about the different ways we interact with AI and how we want different things depending on context was interesting. I hope to find time to read that full report.
posted by Wretch729 at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
Of course, this means that nobody who knows me actually sees any photos I take unless I send them to them in a direct message, but there's a lot of varyingly weird old men on Flickr who favourite them emphatically.
As a varyingly weird old man, I appreciate your efforts in content creation.
posted by thelonius at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [11 favorites]
As a varyingly weird old man, I appreciate your efforts in content creation.
posted by thelonius at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [11 favorites]
This reminds me of when TiVos first came out, and all it did was record, but it could record things you *might* like in addition to what you told it to record. Problem was, it thought everything was a TV show, with each showing another episode, so my friend the early adopter after having told it to record The Matrix, which was in heavy rotation on HBO and long before it became a franchise, kept coming home to find the movie recorded again and again. "Here's another episode of The Matrix!" TiVo would say. "You LIIIIIKE The Matrix!"
posted by JanetLand at 6:05 AM on May 12, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 6:05 AM on May 12, 2021 [23 favorites]
METAFILTER: a varyingly weird old man
posted by philip-random at 6:09 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 6:09 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
"despite the fact that I've bought a lot of music from Amazon, it still has no idea what my taste is."
Amazon's algorithm seems to notably struggle with the idea that people have wide-ranging tastes in a variety of topics, rather than only wanting to read one book that covers all of their interests at the same time. Like, it has correctly figured out that I like reading academic theology about medieval Christianity, well-written young adult novels featuring female protagonists, Jane Austen, and feminist takes on classic fairy tales. But it therefore thinks I would like to read absolutely garbage YA fiction about vampires who have a fictional religion in steampunk London. It never occurs to it that I might separately enjoy reading academic theology and it could give me recommendations in theology based solely on my prior theology reading, without needing to mix all my fiction reading habits in. Nor has it figured out the fact that I enjoyed The Hate U Give and the Broken Earth trilogy does not mean I want to read Divergent or The Hunger Games. I separately enjoy high quality young adult fiction and fantasy fiction, it does not mean that I want to read all the young adult dystopias.
Anyway I've been shopping at Amazon for 20 years, and it has never managed to recommend to me a book that I would actually enjoy.
More and more, I'm appreciating human curation, and actively seeking it out, whether that's from my local librarians, from TV and movie reviewers whom I find insightful, or from smart music people who curate playlists as a hobby. There are a couple of radio stations around here that let actual human DJs pick music that interests them, but it's for like an hour at like 2:00 a.m. People have taste, but algorithms don't; and I'm just finding more and more that enthusiastic human beings are better guides to new things I might enjoy than algorithms are.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:11 AM on May 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
Amazon's algorithm seems to notably struggle with the idea that people have wide-ranging tastes in a variety of topics, rather than only wanting to read one book that covers all of their interests at the same time. Like, it has correctly figured out that I like reading academic theology about medieval Christianity, well-written young adult novels featuring female protagonists, Jane Austen, and feminist takes on classic fairy tales. But it therefore thinks I would like to read absolutely garbage YA fiction about vampires who have a fictional religion in steampunk London. It never occurs to it that I might separately enjoy reading academic theology and it could give me recommendations in theology based solely on my prior theology reading, without needing to mix all my fiction reading habits in. Nor has it figured out the fact that I enjoyed The Hate U Give and the Broken Earth trilogy does not mean I want to read Divergent or The Hunger Games. I separately enjoy high quality young adult fiction and fantasy fiction, it does not mean that I want to read all the young adult dystopias.
Anyway I've been shopping at Amazon for 20 years, and it has never managed to recommend to me a book that I would actually enjoy.
More and more, I'm appreciating human curation, and actively seeking it out, whether that's from my local librarians, from TV and movie reviewers whom I find insightful, or from smart music people who curate playlists as a hobby. There are a couple of radio stations around here that let actual human DJs pick music that interests them, but it's for like an hour at like 2:00 a.m. People have taste, but algorithms don't; and I'm just finding more and more that enthusiastic human beings are better guides to new things I might enjoy than algorithms are.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:11 AM on May 12, 2021 [13 favorites]
There's a startup opportunity here: a social network which just shows you things your friends post in reverse chronological order. You can comment on the things.
That's it. A guarantee of no other 'features', ever, and none of that thing people are calling 'AI' these days. No engagement, no targeting.
The monetization could be some sort of banner ads or the ability to remove them with a small monthly fee.
posted by signal at 6:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
That's it. A guarantee of no other 'features', ever, and none of that thing people are calling 'AI' these days. No engagement, no targeting.
The monetization could be some sort of banner ads or the ability to remove them with a small monthly fee.
posted by signal at 6:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
The "Card Cheat, we just added a movie you might like" emails I get from Netflix are comically off-base. It's like you don't even know me, algorithm.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:25 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:25 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
My experience with the algorithm: Amazon is ok-ish at recommending books, mostly by sticking to authors I've already read. Spotify is pretty good with its generated playlists, though for some reason thinks that as I live in Chile I must love reggaeton, trap and cumbia. Youtube music was garbage, either recommending the same videos I've watched a thousand times, or reggaeton, trap and cumbia. Netflix is all over the place, some of its recs are good, some not so much, seems to be pretty random.
Re: the excessive emphasis on geographical location over 20 years of my actual listening habits, I've gotten in touch with various tech supports and they say "that's how it's supposed to work". My guess is the client-as-product aspect relies on your location more than your tastes, so they have some sort of deal worked out to push these reggaeton, trap and cumbia tracks in Chile, and by gum they're gonna do it.
posted by signal at 6:25 AM on May 12, 2021
Re: the excessive emphasis on geographical location over 20 years of my actual listening habits, I've gotten in touch with various tech supports and they say "that's how it's supposed to work". My guess is the client-as-product aspect relies on your location more than your tastes, so they have some sort of deal worked out to push these reggaeton, trap and cumbia tracks in Chile, and by gum they're gonna do it.
posted by signal at 6:25 AM on May 12, 2021
...a social network which just shows you things your friends post in reverse chronological order. You can comment on the things.
signal, I think you just invented the blogroll.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:28 AM on May 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
signal, I think you just invented the blogroll.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:28 AM on May 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
I do think we'll be looking back with a sort of rose-coloured fondness on the era of dumb AI, and probably fairly soon -- all part of the overall acceleration afoot. I'm at least mildly annoyed on a more than daily basis with "targeted" ads and whatnot that clearly have zero idea of what I actually like and don't like, but then ...
they aren't only optimizing for what the user wants. The priorities of the platform and its advertisers are in there too. Maybe it was beyond the scope of the article but I wish they would question their premises a bit more.
I mean, it's been personal policy for at least the past five or seven years of my social-media-izing to NEVER respond to a targeted ad in any way. In the case of Facebook, that means, no "Hide Ad", no "Report Ad", no "Why am I seeing this ad?" Because I Just Do Not Trust Them with that kind of personal information*. Every bit of honest info that I give them as to my preferences -- I know that will be used against me. Maybe not to destroy me publicly or aid and abet identity theft or whatever, but certainly to sell me shit I don't need, to add more NOISE to my life.
* yes I know, they're tracking and cookie-ing me regardless of what I may voluntarily offer, but this voluntary stuff still feels like a higher level of "welcome too my private self".
posted by philip-random at 6:29 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
they aren't only optimizing for what the user wants. The priorities of the platform and its advertisers are in there too. Maybe it was beyond the scope of the article but I wish they would question their premises a bit more.
I mean, it's been personal policy for at least the past five or seven years of my social-media-izing to NEVER respond to a targeted ad in any way. In the case of Facebook, that means, no "Hide Ad", no "Report Ad", no "Why am I seeing this ad?" Because I Just Do Not Trust Them with that kind of personal information*. Every bit of honest info that I give them as to my preferences -- I know that will be used against me. Maybe not to destroy me publicly or aid and abet identity theft or whatever, but certainly to sell me shit I don't need, to add more NOISE to my life.
* yes I know, they're tracking and cookie-ing me regardless of what I may voluntarily offer, but this voluntary stuff still feels like a higher level of "welcome too my private self".
posted by philip-random at 6:29 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
On the few social thingies where I see ads, like the instagram app, I always, always report the ads for random reasons, just to add a bit of noise and try to make the whole thing less effective.
posted by signal at 6:34 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:34 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Reddit is the only "social" media site I visit regularly these days. You can easily stay anonymous and by avoiding bad "subreddits" (content categories) and choosing good subreddits, you can avoid most of the toxic, terrible stuff that IS still a big part of Reddit.
I can select subreddits for my hobbies, interests, etc and it never feels like it's shoveling too much garbage at me. Of course—garbage IS shoveled. Reddit is not a Utopia. But it offers a lot of great content.
Reddit gets dumped on at Metafilter for legitimate reasons. But you can curate your experience and avoid most of the garbage on the site. It's also amusing to me that Reddit is obviously the source for most talk and news show topics these days... as I'll see a crazy story there and the next day it will likely show up on either the local news, Colbert or one or more of the other chat shows.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:47 AM on May 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
I can select subreddits for my hobbies, interests, etc and it never feels like it's shoveling too much garbage at me. Of course—garbage IS shoveled. Reddit is not a Utopia. But it offers a lot of great content.
Reddit gets dumped on at Metafilter for legitimate reasons. But you can curate your experience and avoid most of the garbage on the site. It's also amusing to me that Reddit is obviously the source for most talk and news show topics these days... as I'll see a crazy story there and the next day it will likely show up on either the local news, Colbert or one or more of the other chat shows.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:47 AM on May 12, 2021 [16 favorites]
Once Spotify played for me Sturgill Simpson's "Last Man Standing" followed by Willie Nelson's "Last Man Standing" (a completely different song). I thought that was kind of funny and asked an acquaintance who works at Spotify if they programmed a sense of humor into the AI algorithm. He told me that they actually have a bunch of folks building playlists manually, and that only some playlists are AI generated. I don't know that I buy it, but that's what he said anyway.
posted by St. Oops at 6:52 AM on May 12, 2021
posted by St. Oops at 6:52 AM on May 12, 2021
Original TiVo was AWESOME. It would BELIEVE you when you told it, never do that again. Over time, they softened their AI to be more forgiving and it was never the same. I only just ditched TIVo this past month, I was using it since I got one in 2001. I have no idea how people tolerate commercials. YouTube latches onto any product I've ever looked at once it seems. I hate it. And their algorithm always goes nuts if you search for one thing. Watch 10 seconds of something, that must be your jam.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:56 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:56 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I bought rope and macramé rings for a project a couple of months ago. Right now I have lights for video production in my shopping cart. Looking at my suggestions, Amazon is making some very forward assumptions about why I might buy all those things.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:20 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 7:20 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Honestly, I just wanted fewer streaming services.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
When it comes to books, Amazon's algorithm has improved dramatically in recent months. For years they kept pushing books with half-naked men on the cover even though I never read or bought any. It was annoying because 98% of my reading is on a Kindle, so they know what I actually read. The Kindle knows that I procrastinate by reading productivity books. The Kindle knows that when reading a fair play mystery I will skip to the end to see if my guess is correct. The Kindle knows that I will stop reading a mystery if there isn't a dead body in the first 30 pages. The Kindle knows that I switched to the audiobook every time Melville started describing whales. Now I'm not an algorithm, but I think that if someone reads 10 Inspector Gamache books, it might make sense to push #11 instead of a completely unrelated book in a different genre. And yet.
I did say they'd improved dramatically. Based on reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Amazon is suggesting The Travelling Cat Chronicles, Convenience Store Woman, and Strange Weather in Tokyo. Those are all great recs! However, I've already read them, as my friend Kindle should know. It's also recommending a book called The Turk and my Mother and another shirtless man book. The real question is why these shirtless men are always coyly hiding their nipples behind the title of the book. How much market research went into that?
posted by betweenthebars at 7:29 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I did say they'd improved dramatically. Based on reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Amazon is suggesting The Travelling Cat Chronicles, Convenience Store Woman, and Strange Weather in Tokyo. Those are all great recs! However, I've already read them, as my friend Kindle should know. It's also recommending a book called The Turk and my Mother and another shirtless man book. The real question is why these shirtless men are always coyly hiding their nipples behind the title of the book. How much market research went into that?
posted by betweenthebars at 7:29 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
HBO Max allows you to see their entire catalog, in alphabetical order, right on one page. I love it, because it takes me back to that feeling of meandering through a rental store. And, yeah, I see the same things over and over again, but that's because they're just still there. I am given the options that are available, and I have the agency to move through them as I like.
Compare that to Netflix, where we all know they're are hundreds of thousands of options, yet they only really let me see fifteen.
My husband and I sometimes play a game we call Netflix Roulette: we go to search, and we type in a random letter or two, then we scroll through the search results to see what came up. And that is a more enjoyable option than being subjected to the algorithm.
posted by meese at 7:30 AM on May 12, 2021 [24 favorites]
Compare that to Netflix, where we all know they're are hundreds of thousands of options, yet they only really let me see fifteen.
My husband and I sometimes play a game we call Netflix Roulette: we go to search, and we type in a random letter or two, then we scroll through the search results to see what came up. And that is a more enjoyable option than being subjected to the algorithm.
posted by meese at 7:30 AM on May 12, 2021 [24 favorites]
I'm reminded of the experiments a year or so ago with ai bots on social media that turned into hate-spewing assholes almost immediately and had to be turned off. And I think that these (maybe) lower-level AIs are just on the same path and in the process are turning human into more hate-spewing assholes along the way. So, yeah, no AI is probably for the best for now.
posted by snwod at 7:43 AM on May 12, 2021
posted by snwod at 7:43 AM on May 12, 2021
About five years ago, i spent all of one month in Australia. The Guardian's website seems to think I'm still there
Check the url - is it possible you're accidentally on the Guardian's Australia edition? (You can set the edition from the url or from a selector at the top right of the page.) I don't think they customize views at the individual level...
posted by trig at 7:47 AM on May 12, 2021
Check the url - is it possible you're accidentally on the Guardian's Australia edition? (You can set the edition from the url or from a selector at the top right of the page.) I don't think they customize views at the individual level...
posted by trig at 7:47 AM on May 12, 2021
When it comes to movies, I've totally replaced the streaming service algorithms with curation: Letterboxd is chock full of user-created lists and aggregated reviews and viewing data that lets me see what movies are most popular or best-reviewed by their user base, as well as the friends and critics who I follow on the service. I also have a pro account that lets me see at a glance which movies I want to see are streaming on my various services, which is easily worth the subscription price.
I like to take a few minutes every week to build a little bite-sized watchlist culled from my HUGE master watchlist, and use that to plan out my viewing. It saves a TON of time over just clicking through every service and slowly dying of decision paralysis, and also helps keep me current with what the people I know are also watching and enjoying instead of surrendering fully to just what the algorithms want to shovel at me.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I like to take a few minutes every week to build a little bite-sized watchlist culled from my HUGE master watchlist, and use that to plan out my viewing. It saves a TON of time over just clicking through every service and slowly dying of decision paralysis, and also helps keep me current with what the people I know are also watching and enjoying instead of surrendering fully to just what the algorithms want to shovel at me.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
My husband and I sometimes play a game we call Netflix Roulette: we go to search, and we type in a random letter or two, then we scroll through the search results to see what came up. And that is a more enjoyable option than being subjected to the algorithm.
24 years in business + Netflix still can't support effective searching by director, cast members, etc. I've long been curious to know if there's much of any metadata sitting behind any individual item - my guess is the algorithm-driven selections are entirely on title, the lazy categories Netflix assigns, and maybe something like the general design of the cover.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:56 AM on May 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
24 years in business + Netflix still can't support effective searching by director, cast members, etc. I've long been curious to know if there's much of any metadata sitting behind any individual item - my guess is the algorithm-driven selections are entirely on title, the lazy categories Netflix assigns, and maybe something like the general design of the cover.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:56 AM on May 12, 2021 [5 favorites]
My husband and I sometimes play a game we call Netflix Roulette: we go to search, and we type in a random letter or two, then we scroll through the search results to see what came up.
my variation on this is to search for something I definitely don't want to see and then go to the bottom of the results page and start scrolling up. Back To The Future just got me to the Mitford Sisters (a doc I've been meaning to see) ... or maybe it's time again for a deep and foolish dive into Trailer Park Boys.
posted by philip-random at 7:58 AM on May 12, 2021
is this where I can complain about Hulu actively hiding stuff that I would most want to see? it's so weird. they're clearly making shows and acquiring movies aimed at my demographic, but I only ever hear about them if I catch a review in NY Mag
Netflix...I dunno, Netflix always seems to recommend absolute garbage. It's like having a food genie who promises they can get you what you want, out of everything in the whole world, they'll magic up something you'll really like! But then the food genie just gives everyone McDonald's french fries all the time, because they have collected enough information to know that everyone likes McDonald's french fries and most people will eat them whenever even if they'd rather have something more nutritious.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:59 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Netflix...I dunno, Netflix always seems to recommend absolute garbage. It's like having a food genie who promises they can get you what you want, out of everything in the whole world, they'll magic up something you'll really like! But then the food genie just gives everyone McDonald's french fries all the time, because they have collected enough information to know that everyone likes McDonald's french fries and most people will eat them whenever even if they'd rather have something more nutritious.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:59 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Netflix also has the new horrifying option, "Play Something." Which is supposedly a randomizer - I assume plays their content first. I would never select such a garbage option. "Oh, something will do."
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:16 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:16 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Facebook Marketplace has the most aggressively idiotic algorithm I've seen in the wild. If you search for something, the results are in "Recommended" order, which seems intent on surfacing items that were listed 17 weeks ago. If you search for, say, "nikon," it will throw up anything vaguely photography related (plus random real estate listings, the algorithm loooooves real estate listings), so it's literally impossible to search for something specific. You can sort by "Date listed," but every single time you search it will reset to "Recommended" again. If you click on something shady with the intent to report or block it (50¢ Airpods Pro!), there is no way to do either, so from then on it will excitedly show you more Shady Things and free bibles. Oh, and if you recently sold a thing, be prepared to scroll through an endless list of that same thing for several weeks afterwards, because obviously you are in want of one.
posted by oulipian at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by oulipian at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Netflix does okay for me; it knows I will watch literally anything that can remotely be classed as a "costume drama," and that my preferred brain candy is "anything starring 'teenagers' that could have aired on the WB/the CW between the Buffy era and the Gossip Girl era." (Bring back Teenaged Bounty Hunters, *sob*)
I'm getting real tired of it trying to convince me I'll like reality TV, though.
It would be really nice if streaming TV services would let me customize what my first few categories to appear are. Like, if I could prioritize "soapy historical dramas" "fantasy TV" and "family sitcoms," because those are the things I'm most likely to watch when I don't know what I want to watch, that'd be great. I don't MIND flipping through their 500 categories of randomness but I'd like my favorite ones to be up top. (And on Disney+, if I'm on MY profile, I am ALWAYS, ALWAYS looking for "80s hits" "family Disney classics" or "soothing nature documentaries." You have to scroll way, way, way down to find the older stuff like Flight of the Navigator or Swiss Family Robinson. Like, I subscribe to you because I have children, Disney, and therefore I have already seen Frozen and Frozen II approximately five billion times and do not need it at the top of my page.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm getting real tired of it trying to convince me I'll like reality TV, though.
It would be really nice if streaming TV services would let me customize what my first few categories to appear are. Like, if I could prioritize "soapy historical dramas" "fantasy TV" and "family sitcoms," because those are the things I'm most likely to watch when I don't know what I want to watch, that'd be great. I don't MIND flipping through their 500 categories of randomness but I'd like my favorite ones to be up top. (And on Disney+, if I'm on MY profile, I am ALWAYS, ALWAYS looking for "80s hits" "family Disney classics" or "soothing nature documentaries." You have to scroll way, way, way down to find the older stuff like Flight of the Navigator or Swiss Family Robinson. Like, I subscribe to you because I have children, Disney, and therefore I have already seen Frozen and Frozen II approximately five billion times and do not need it at the top of my page.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
My usual netflix "user experience" is fighting the UI to pull up a specific thing I want to watch, almost always from word of mouth from actual people. The best thing AI could do for me would be to stop being so urgently in my face about what it's trying to get me to (spit, evil eye) engage with.
I've also got a lot better finally about suspending subscriptions when there's not a sufficient queue of things I'm actually in process of watching instead of vaguely intending to sometime, and only resubscribing when I care to. In a way, the full-on pursuit of algorithm recommendations making the queue-I-actually-manually-added-to more and more buried has helped with that.
posted by Drastic at 8:23 AM on May 12, 2021
I've also got a lot better finally about suspending subscriptions when there's not a sufficient queue of things I'm actually in process of watching instead of vaguely intending to sometime, and only resubscribing when I care to. In a way, the full-on pursuit of algorithm recommendations making the queue-I-actually-manually-added-to more and more buried has helped with that.
posted by Drastic at 8:23 AM on May 12, 2021
Netflix also has the new horrifying option, "Play Something." Which is supposedly a randomizer - I assume plays their content first. I would never select such a garbage option. "Oh, something will do."
Plus, we already have that! It's called television. Nicely retro, Netflix.
posted by JanetLand at 8:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Plus, we already have that! It's called television. Nicely retro, Netflix.
posted by JanetLand at 8:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Compare that to Netflix, where we all know they're are hundreds of thousands of options, yet they only really let me see fifteen.
This is the weirdest and most infuriating thing about Netflix. It's like when you start it up, it downloads maybe 250 thumbnails, and by God that's all it's going to show you today. Science fiction movies? Here's 80 of the 250. Horror? Another 80, of which it just showed you 60 as science fiction. Sports movies? Another 80, of which 40 are SF or horror movies. Romance? Here, have 80 SF, horror, and sports movies where someone maybe smooches once.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:30 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
This is the weirdest and most infuriating thing about Netflix. It's like when you start it up, it downloads maybe 250 thumbnails, and by God that's all it's going to show you today. Science fiction movies? Here's 80 of the 250. Horror? Another 80, of which it just showed you 60 as science fiction. Sports movies? Another 80, of which 40 are SF or horror movies. Romance? Here, have 80 SF, horror, and sports movies where someone maybe smooches once.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:30 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
All Netflix needs to do to cure the hell that is trying to find something to watch is have a toggle to hide films you have already watched/rated. They don't do that because then it would be obvious how much of a content graveyard their library is.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
All Netflix needs to do to cure the hell that is trying to find something to watch
I have completely abandoned Netflix due solely to their insistence on automatically playing the trailer, with audio, for whatever item I'm just trying to read the damn description of - and their refusal to provide a way for me to turn that off. I have no problem scrolling past their recommendations - 20 years of ignoring TiVo and Amazon's recommendations have numbed me - just don't make me watch the damn thing when I'm trying to figure out whether I want to watch it.
And now Amazon seems to be moving in the same direction.
posted by nickmark at 9:06 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have completely abandoned Netflix due solely to their insistence on automatically playing the trailer, with audio, for whatever item I'm just trying to read the damn description of - and their refusal to provide a way for me to turn that off. I have no problem scrolling past their recommendations - 20 years of ignoring TiVo and Amazon's recommendations have numbed me - just don't make me watch the damn thing when I'm trying to figure out whether I want to watch it.
And now Amazon seems to be moving in the same direction.
posted by nickmark at 9:06 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
if we ever got a proper peak behind the curtain, we’d be shocked and scandalized to find that these supposedly intricate AI routines are ultimately held together by Elmer’s and hope, whereupon a not insignificant number of us would turn into quivering jelly, having observed human artifice and arrogance on a grand scale.
In 1950, Alan Turing postulated a test for AI. By 2050 I think we will have collected sufficient evidence that his test was doomed to fail, not because General Artificial Intelligence is impossible, but because it wasn't needed. A handful of regular expressions are all you really need to trick humanity.
posted by pwnguin at 9:15 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
In 1950, Alan Turing postulated a test for AI. By 2050 I think we will have collected sufficient evidence that his test was doomed to fail, not because General Artificial Intelligence is impossible, but because it wasn't needed. A handful of regular expressions are all you really need to trick humanity.
posted by pwnguin at 9:15 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
My husband and I sometimes play a game we call Netflix Roulette: we go to search, and we type in a random letter or two--meese
I do that too! I remember very early streaming Netflix on one of the first Rokus, where they basically just showed you everything they had (since it wasn't that much). I was almost always able to find something I wanted to watch. Now I assume they have a much larger library, but they insist on only showing me a few shows they are promoting (they make their own movies and shows now and promote those, plus they just bought a bunch of shows from South Korea), plus a select few shows that their algorithm thinks I want. Since my interests vary widely and change often, which no algorithm seems able to handle, I now almost never find anything of interest: the endless scrolling. I almost never watch Netflix now and frequently think of just cancelling it.
They should have some options such as '-give me a menu with really fast scrolling and show me everything', or at least throw some complete randomness into the algorithm.
What do I want to see? Maybe I want so see something new, something I would never have even considered watching before. Give me an option of showing me everything except what your algorithm thinks I want to see.
posted by eye of newt at 9:27 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
I do that too! I remember very early streaming Netflix on one of the first Rokus, where they basically just showed you everything they had (since it wasn't that much). I was almost always able to find something I wanted to watch. Now I assume they have a much larger library, but they insist on only showing me a few shows they are promoting (they make their own movies and shows now and promote those, plus they just bought a bunch of shows from South Korea), plus a select few shows that their algorithm thinks I want. Since my interests vary widely and change often, which no algorithm seems able to handle, I now almost never find anything of interest: the endless scrolling. I almost never watch Netflix now and frequently think of just cancelling it.
They should have some options such as '-give me a menu with really fast scrolling and show me everything', or at least throw some complete randomness into the algorithm.
What do I want to see? Maybe I want so see something new, something I would never have even considered watching before. Give me an option of showing me everything except what your algorithm thinks I want to see.
posted by eye of newt at 9:27 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have completely abandoned Netflix due solely to their insistence on automatically playing the trailer, with audio, for whatever item I'm just trying to read the damn description of
YES. THIS.
Dear all website and app developers everywhere, please do not EVER make ANYTHING on my screen move unless I deliberately clicked on a button to make it do so. Yes, that includes ads. Yes, that includes autoplaying video in a tiny little player in the corner. Yes, that includes carousel views with no Stop button. And yes, that includes trailers. You are actively driving me away from your products by making it impossible for me to use them without discomfort. I can mute my device and turn the volume down to 0 for good measure, but I can't take any preventative action against things moving in my peripheral vision... except not using the website/app in the first place.
I mean, by all means make it easy for me to choose to watch a trailer - although I'm not likely to, so please also make it easy for me to choose to read about the series and/or episode - but "the focus rested on this series for half a second as I scrolled down looking for my Currently Watching section" (which, by the way, I would like right at the top please) is not me requesting to watch a trailer, and I cannot imagine why you thought it might be.
(I've done what I can to disable it in various streaming services, including Netflix -- oh, and can we also have words about the bright idea they've all had to make it impossible to change settings that affect user experience in a given app *from within that app*, forcing me to find a way of accessing the website? -- but I keep tripping over new contexts in which it happens.)
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:58 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
YES. THIS.
Dear all website and app developers everywhere, please do not EVER make ANYTHING on my screen move unless I deliberately clicked on a button to make it do so. Yes, that includes ads. Yes, that includes autoplaying video in a tiny little player in the corner. Yes, that includes carousel views with no Stop button. And yes, that includes trailers. You are actively driving me away from your products by making it impossible for me to use them without discomfort. I can mute my device and turn the volume down to 0 for good measure, but I can't take any preventative action against things moving in my peripheral vision... except not using the website/app in the first place.
I mean, by all means make it easy for me to choose to watch a trailer - although I'm not likely to, so please also make it easy for me to choose to read about the series and/or episode - but "the focus rested on this series for half a second as I scrolled down looking for my Currently Watching section" (which, by the way, I would like right at the top please) is not me requesting to watch a trailer, and I cannot imagine why you thought it might be.
(I've done what I can to disable it in various streaming services, including Netflix -- oh, and can we also have words about the bright idea they've all had to make it impossible to change settings that affect user experience in a given app *from within that app*, forcing me to find a way of accessing the website? -- but I keep tripping over new contexts in which it happens.)
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:58 AM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]
Although I share everyone's view of how annoying Netflix is, it's hard to imagine they just haven't figured out how to develop a good recommendation system. It's one of the most data-driven companies on the planet. I think we can assume they have obsessively tested all kinds of interfaces and recommendation engines, and what they have now is the most efficient at keeping subscribers and funneling them toward their lowest-cost, most profitable content.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:14 AM on May 12, 2021
posted by PhineasGage at 10:14 AM on May 12, 2021
Ephelump Jockey: " Spotify’s search is awful, and that makes it awesome."
Spotify does that mind-boggingly stupid thing where you search for the name of a song, say "sorry", and it helpfully has Halsey's 'Sorry' near the top, so you click and listen to it happily, and then IT KEEPS PLAYING OTHER SONGS NAMED 'SORRY', BY ANYBODY, IN ANY GENRE, because this is how people work, we don't want to hear a specific song, just ALL songs ever created with a similar name,
posted by signal at 10:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
Spotify does that mind-boggingly stupid thing where you search for the name of a song, say "sorry", and it helpfully has Halsey's 'Sorry' near the top, so you click and listen to it happily, and then IT KEEPS PLAYING OTHER SONGS NAMED 'SORRY', BY ANYBODY, IN ANY GENRE, because this is how people work, we don't want to hear a specific song, just ALL songs ever created with a similar name,
posted by signal at 10:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [9 favorites]
The biggest reason Tumblr is my primary social media home is that it still shows my dash in reverse chronological order and is laughably terrible at targeting ads.
Like, to the point that when they do manage to show me an a for a) a real product that b) I might conceivably want, I feel a sense of pride akin to what I might feel at being presented with a kindergartener’s particularly good macaroni art.
posted by nonasuch at 10:37 AM on May 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
Like, to the point that when they do manage to show me an a for a) a real product that b) I might conceivably want, I feel a sense of pride akin to what I might feel at being presented with a kindergartener’s particularly good macaroni art.
posted by nonasuch at 10:37 AM on May 12, 2021 [7 favorites]
You can now turn it off. It's in your settings. For the longest time, you couldn't.
I just looked and it's not there. But even if it were, it doesn't matter. It's too late. The algorithm has already categorized Netflix as stupid and annoying, and is thus removing it from my recommendations of where to look for things to watch.
posted by nickmark at 10:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I just looked and it's not there. But even if it were, it doesn't matter. It's too late. The algorithm has already categorized Netflix as stupid and annoying, and is thus removing it from my recommendations of where to look for things to watch.
posted by nickmark at 10:42 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
I switched from Spotify to Apple Music last year for a number of reasons. Folks complain about how bad Apple Music's recommendations/auto-generated playlists are, but for me that's been a major plus. It's made me way less reliant on algorithms and they do have a ton of really fantastic curated playlists. It took a bit of time to get used to not just auto-clicking on something like Discover Weekly, but now I actually spend the time reading music blogs and forums like I did when I was super into music in my early 20s. I listen to entire albums again! I listen to super diverse genres again instead of being siloed into certain categories! I've rediscovered my eclectic taste and the magic of seeking out music. You could do this with Spotify too, of course, but having the option of a decently created auto-generated playlist taken away basically forced me to do some work again. It's led me to finding music on other sites too, like Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Obviously this level of effort isn't for everyone, not everyone has the time - but for me it's been a real blessing.
posted by thebots at 10:44 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by thebots at 10:44 AM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
Netflix had a good recommendation system. You could rate movies and shows on a 1-5 star scale. It actually was very accurate with me and others I've talked to in pinpointing things we'd like after not very long.
Then they went thumbs up and down and got rid of ALL of your old ratings. Why? Because they wanted their content to be recommended.
Also, a lot of netflix settings are only available if you are on the web browser. If you're using a console or native TV app, you may not see certain settings. Like customizing your subtitles couldn't be done before (no idea if changed). Would be on brand for the autoplay trailers to be there too. Note: if you change it, it would affect all platforms, but they keep it available to change only in one place. Clever Netflixes!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:48 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Then they went thumbs up and down and got rid of ALL of your old ratings. Why? Because they wanted their content to be recommended.
Also, a lot of netflix settings are only available if you are on the web browser. If you're using a console or native TV app, you may not see certain settings. Like customizing your subtitles couldn't be done before (no idea if changed). Would be on brand for the autoplay trailers to be there too. Note: if you change it, it would affect all platforms, but they keep it available to change only in one place. Clever Netflixes!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:48 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Play Something." Which is supposedly a randomizer - I assume plays their content first.
Your assumption would be correct. I was delighted when I saw the feature, which quickly soured when I discovered that it simply plays a show/movie Netflix is currently trying to push through the myriad other means they use.
I would really, really like a feature like this that actually played a random selection from their library. Even greater would be setting some filters on genre or length and then choosing randomly from that, but no. Even just choosing randomly from "My List" would be a huge improvement.
Metafilter seems to be the only place with a truly random "random" button.
posted by subocoyne at 10:55 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Your assumption would be correct. I was delighted when I saw the feature, which quickly soured when I discovered that it simply plays a show/movie Netflix is currently trying to push through the myriad other means they use.
I would really, really like a feature like this that actually played a random selection from their library. Even greater would be setting some filters on genre or length and then choosing randomly from that, but no. Even just choosing randomly from "My List" would be a huge improvement.
Metafilter seems to be the only place with a truly random "random" button.
posted by subocoyne at 10:55 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Everyone has already covered anything I might have said, with one exception. The "fantasy" genre is a completely useless distinction when it includes everything from He-Man cartoons to Game of Thrones to episodic anime with ten-word-long titles to random supernatural-ish TV shows from the last 30 years. I'm pretty sure most streaming services sort everything else first and then the remainder gets tagged as "fantasy". Blurgh.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 11:27 AM on May 12, 2021
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 11:27 AM on May 12, 2021
Although I share everyone's view of how annoying Netflix is, it's hard to imagine they just haven't figured out how to develop a good recommendation system.
It's like google:
It's like google:
if(profit=already_satisfactory){
just_keep_fucking_around;
}posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:34 AM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites] And I still can't find the "Don't show me any videos from any channels run by people who have liked even one Jordan Peterson video" button.......
Word.
Stuff like that sometimes makes me feel like there are several algorithms competing for space on my YouTube home page. Like, I mostly get a mix of video game clips and walkthroughs, tons of 90s era rap videos, any number of scientists reacting to scenes from The Expanse, and a number of other things I'm really interested in.
But, for reasons I will never understand, I also get a bunch of Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan/red pill/"anti-woke" bullshit, no matter how often I tell it not to recommend those kinds of channels. It's absurd.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:02 PM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Word.
Stuff like that sometimes makes me feel like there are several algorithms competing for space on my YouTube home page. Like, I mostly get a mix of video game clips and walkthroughs, tons of 90s era rap videos, any number of scientists reacting to scenes from The Expanse, and a number of other things I'm really interested in.
But, for reasons I will never understand, I also get a bunch of Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan/red pill/"anti-woke" bullshit, no matter how often I tell it not to recommend those kinds of channels. It's absurd.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:02 PM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Okay, now I want to know why youtube actually does a fairly decent job recommending things to me. I mean there was a time a couple years ago when I'd get all sorts of links to "wacky/intense history" explainers, but after I marked them as "didn't like" they went away and now my feed tends to follow whatever it is I'm looking at.
Given all the Metafilter videos I click on I'd think my feed would be more like other people's here. What's the deal? Am I just someone not worth advertising to?(My gmail account is also up while I search too.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:28 PM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
Given all the Metafilter videos I click on I'd think my feed would be more like other people's here. What's the deal? Am I just someone not worth advertising to?(My gmail account is also up while I search too.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:28 PM on May 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
LOL, GCU Sweet and Full of Grace - you might be the only MeFite who believes any rapacious corporation has ever reached
(profit=already_satisfactory)
posted by PhineasGage at 1:34 PM on May 12, 2021
(profit=already_satisfactory)
posted by PhineasGage at 1:34 PM on May 12, 2021
But, for reasons I will never understand, I also get a bunch of Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan/red pill/"anti-woke" bullshit, no matter how often I tell it not to recommend those kinds of channels. It's absurd.
It's like a paperclip optimiser, only for highly “engaged” users, and the most engaged users are apparently Nazis.
posted by acb at 2:07 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's like a paperclip optimiser, only for highly “engaged” users, and the most engaged users are apparently Nazis.
posted by acb at 2:07 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Do you suppose the Profit Algorithm would notice if we closed YouTube every time we were suggested Nazi-adjacent material?
posted by clew at 2:10 PM on May 12, 2021
posted by clew at 2:10 PM on May 12, 2021
It would, except presumably the people who do this are outnumbered by insecure young men looking for their Tyler Durden, drowning that signal out.
posted by acb at 2:14 PM on May 12, 2021
posted by acb at 2:14 PM on May 12, 2021
you might be the only MeFite who believes any rapacious corporation has ever reached
(profit=already_satisfactory)
That's fair; I'd also accept
(profit=already_satisfactory)
That's fair; I'd also accept
if(we_are_total_total_smegheads){
keep_fucking_around;
}posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:42 PM on May 12, 2021 Netflix, where we all know there are hundreds of thousands of options, yet they only really let me see fifteen
Now I assume they have a much larger library, but they insist on only showing me a few shows
Actually, according to this here, where Netflix had "well beyond 100,000 titles" 10 years ago, they now have "less than 4,000." We've been assuming we can't find the movies because the algorithm's bad. It's the pictures that got small.
posted by The Half Language Plant at 2:58 PM on May 12, 2021
Now I assume they have a much larger library, but they insist on only showing me a few shows
Actually, according to this here, where Netflix had "well beyond 100,000 titles" 10 years ago, they now have "less than 4,000." We've been assuming we can't find the movies because the algorithm's bad. It's the pictures that got small.
posted by The Half Language Plant at 2:58 PM on May 12, 2021
Most engaged=please provide strong daddy.
Or a secret truth that sets one apart from the sleepwalking NPCs one was one of until now, or an ideal to die for or live absolutely in. Something that gives one's life Meaning, in an epic, pre-modern way. That is more engaging than pop music videos or reviews of gaming chairs or whatever.
posted by acb at 3:05 PM on May 12, 2021
Or a secret truth that sets one apart from the sleepwalking NPCs one was one of until now, or an ideal to die for or live absolutely in. Something that gives one's life Meaning, in an epic, pre-modern way. That is more engaging than pop music videos or reviews of gaming chairs or whatever.
posted by acb at 3:05 PM on May 12, 2021
"Your assumption would be correct. I was delighted when I saw the feature, which quickly soured when I discovered that it simply plays a show/movie Netflix is currently trying to push through the myriad other means they use."
Oh, does it? I tried it out and it started up a (BBC) series I'd been watching a while ago but quite in the middle of and said, "Picking up where you left off ..." and I clicked it again and got a movie I've been meaning to watch and it said "From Your List" and I clicked it again and it gave me another show I'd watched a few episodes of with "Picking up where you left off ..." and only then did it go to a new Netflix show (Jupiter's Legacy) and said, "We think you'll like this sci-fi show ..." (Which based on my viewing habits is a fair bet, although having read reviews I'm kinda meh on watching it.)
I just tried it again now and I had to tell it "play something else" five times before it suggested a Netflix show. It does seem heavy on episodic TV for me rather than movies, but to be fair I haven't really had the attention span for movies since the pandemic started.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:37 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh, does it? I tried it out and it started up a (BBC) series I'd been watching a while ago but quite in the middle of and said, "Picking up where you left off ..." and I clicked it again and got a movie I've been meaning to watch and it said "From Your List" and I clicked it again and it gave me another show I'd watched a few episodes of with "Picking up where you left off ..." and only then did it go to a new Netflix show (Jupiter's Legacy) and said, "We think you'll like this sci-fi show ..." (Which based on my viewing habits is a fair bet, although having read reviews I'm kinda meh on watching it.)
I just tried it again now and I had to tell it "play something else" five times before it suggested a Netflix show. It does seem heavy on episodic TV for me rather than movies, but to be fair I haven't really had the attention span for movies since the pandemic started.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:37 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Youtube is filled with marvelous things.
posted by thelonius at 3:39 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 3:39 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
I forgot my personal favorite Amazon algorithmic blunder. March of last year, I get an Amazon Music notification on my phone that Enigma has released a new track. I think, "You know what, Amazon? As crazy as things have been the last couple weeks, I absolutely could go for some Enigma right now." Click on it and it's not a Pure Mood, it's some rapper going by the same name. They also put songs by the bluegrass artist Bill Evans in the jazz pianist Bill Evans' station.
Don't pay for Amazon Music is what I'm saying.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:25 PM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Don't pay for Amazon Music is what I'm saying.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:25 PM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Ha, I play Netflix roulette too. It's like the only way to get exposed to things in their back catalogue.
If I could make one change to Netflix it would be to only show me any particular show in one category. I mean there might be a psychological thriller out there that is also a family movie and a comedy but there sure aren't a dozen of them.
Spotify does that mind-boggingly stupid thing where you search for the name of a song, say "sorry", and it helpfully has Halsey's 'Sorry' near the top, so you click and listen to it happily, and then IT KEEPS PLAYING OTHER SONGS NAMED 'SORRY', BY ANYBODY, IN ANY GENRE, because this is how people work, we don't want to hear a specific song, just ALL songs ever created with a similar name,
Sorry, this is my fault. I often create playlists by song title.
posted by Mitheral at 5:42 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
If I could make one change to Netflix it would be to only show me any particular show in one category. I mean there might be a psychological thriller out there that is also a family movie and a comedy but there sure aren't a dozen of them.
Spotify does that mind-boggingly stupid thing where you search for the name of a song, say "sorry", and it helpfully has Halsey's 'Sorry' near the top, so you click and listen to it happily, and then IT KEEPS PLAYING OTHER SONGS NAMED 'SORRY', BY ANYBODY, IN ANY GENRE, because this is how people work, we don't want to hear a specific song, just ALL songs ever created with a similar name,
Sorry, this is my fault. I often create playlists by song title.
posted by Mitheral at 5:42 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
The biggest reason Tumblr is my primary social media home is that it still shows my dash in reverse chronological order and is laughably terrible at targeting ads.
When I started using tumblr (The Other Blue Hellsite!®) mobile they kept serving me up ads for one-ton pickups with gooseneck trailers being used to haul wrapped silage bales. I commented to my spouse on what a fascinatingly good job of targeting ads they're doing, because that's really relevant to me.
She sighed and told me that, no, they are not targeting you. They serve the same ads to everyone. And I'm, like, so they think 15yo fangirls are buy a lot of 50k$ pickups to put up their hay? And she sighed.
I love tumblr.
posted by stet at 8:30 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
When I started using tumblr (The Other Blue Hellsite!®) mobile they kept serving me up ads for one-ton pickups with gooseneck trailers being used to haul wrapped silage bales. I commented to my spouse on what a fascinatingly good job of targeting ads they're doing, because that's really relevant to me.
She sighed and told me that, no, they are not targeting you. They serve the same ads to everyone. And I'm, like, so they think 15yo fangirls are buy a lot of 50k$ pickups to put up their hay? And she sighed.
I love tumblr.
posted by stet at 8:30 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
if(profit=already_satisfactory){
just_keep_fucking_around;
}
See your problem is that you accidentally assigned profit the value "already satisfactory", which evaluates to true, so they will always keep fucking around...
...wait...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:34 PM on May 12, 2021
just_keep_fucking_around;
}
See your problem is that you accidentally assigned profit the value "already satisfactory", which evaluates to true, so they will always keep fucking around...
...wait...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:34 PM on May 12, 2021
March of last year, I get an Amazon Music notification on my phone that Enigma has released a new track. I think, "You know what, Amazon? As crazy as things have been the last couple weeks, I absolutely could go for some Enigma right now." Click on it and it's not a Pure Mood, it's some rapper going by the same name.
I found out via Spotify that there's a Jamaican dancehall musician calling himself Cornelius these days, and also a rapper calling himself Momus.
I'm still annoyed that, these days, the canonical The Hummingbirds is a Mumford-alike from Liverpool and not the Australian 90s indiepop band
posted by acb at 4:41 AM on May 13, 2021
I found out via Spotify that there's a Jamaican dancehall musician calling himself Cornelius these days, and also a rapper calling himself Momus.
I'm still annoyed that, these days, the canonical The Hummingbirds is a Mumford-alike from Liverpool and not the Australian 90s indiepop band
posted by acb at 4:41 AM on May 13, 2021
Metafilter seems to be the only place with a truly random "random" button.
I wish to bring your attention to the "random article" link for English Wikipedia (one of the special pages).
posted by brainwane at 5:42 AM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I wish to bring your attention to the "random article" link for English Wikipedia (one of the special pages).
posted by brainwane at 5:42 AM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Do you suppose the Profit Algorithm would notice if we closed YouTube every time we were suggested Nazi-adjacent material?
It certainly hasn't stopped suggesting I try a free trial of premium YouTube, over and over, almost every time I open a video, despite my refusal every single time.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:20 PM on May 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
It certainly hasn't stopped suggesting I try a free trial of premium YouTube, over and over, almost every time I open a video, despite my refusal every single time.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:20 PM on May 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
The scariest algorithmic intrusion for me is GMail trying to manipulate the very language we use by means of suggestions of what to answer.
posted by Tom-B at 6:49 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Tom-B at 6:49 PM on May 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Are you equally angry about predictive keyboards, or (god, remember) T9?
posted by sagc at 6:57 PM on May 13, 2021
posted by sagc at 6:57 PM on May 13, 2021
Predictive keyboards don't send your data back to an surveillance-based advertising company, where it can be combined with other data on you, associated with your real-world identity and used to place you into a demographic bucket for ad targeting, differential pricing and other applications which are not really in your interest (unless one tendentiously defines “your interest” as being parted from your money for a dopamine hit, as the adtech industry does).
Well, the built-in iOS one doesn't. I'm not sure I'd trust Google's Gboard, though.
posted by acb at 5:22 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Well, the built-in iOS one doesn't. I'm not sure I'd trust Google's Gboard, though.
posted by acb at 5:22 AM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
But, for reasons I will never understand, I also get a bunch of Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan/red pill/"anti-woke" bullshit, no matter how often I tell it not to recommend those kinds of channels. It's absurd.
Search for Hololive, watch a few clips and then for the rest of all time your recommendations will be virtual anime girls playing minecraft. But no nazi shit.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:18 AM on May 14, 2021
Search for Hololive, watch a few clips and then for the rest of all time your recommendations will be virtual anime girls playing minecraft. But no nazi shit.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:18 AM on May 14, 2021
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