How Netflix's algorithm exposes technology's racial bias.

Re:How Netflix's algorithm exposes technology's racial bias. by cliveb on Monday February 29, 2016 @07:15PM (#11199856)

Recommender system algorithms typically personalize search results based on similarities to items recently watched, purchased or simply added to a shopping basket. More advanced recommenders suggest based on past history (well YouTube seems to). I don't find personalization by similarity offensive. If I watched a Netflix movie starring Sidney Poitier, I'd expect recommendations to view movies from top Black actors of all time. I see this as ranking on similarity not on racial bias. http://www.imdb.com/list/ls051979184/

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Re:How Netflix's algorithm exposes technology's racial bias. by kodis on Monday February 29, 2016 @07:43PM (#11199996)

Exactly right, but that wouldn't result in as controversial a headline.

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Re:How Netflix's algorithm exposes technology's racial bias. by Turing_Machine on Monday February 29, 2016 @11:17PM (#11200746)

Yup. When I was reading the Horatio Hornblower books a while back, and Amazon suddenly started recommending books by Patrick O'Brian and Dudley Pope, I didn't arrive at the conclusion that Amazon's algorithm was "racist" with respect to 19th Century British naval culture.

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