> The YouTube algorithm I worked on heavily promoted Brexit, because divisiveness is efficient for watch time, and watch time leads to ads.
https://www.twitter.com/gchaslot/status/1036323806242066432
Not clear what exactly technically he is referring to, whether your explanation fits. I suppose an algorithm that tended to cluster people together could be described as divisive.
Our own society is becoming paperclip maximizer! We want to spend more time watching interesting videos and more dopamine shots.. And the company and people working for it, even indirectly, oblige.
We worry that there will be an AI where all of what it does is a consequence of giant misunderstanding of human nature. But what if there is nothing to misunderstand about humans, but it's rather our own design flaws that cause our desires, when being taken as an objective function to be ruthlessly maximized, lead to society that is, at best, extremely dull.
Yeah, similarity of “preference” is approximated, in any recommender system, by this or some similar analysis of behavior with respect to content.
In fact, YouTube is very left-leaning internally - if they were deliberately biasing content, you’d expect it to be biased in the other direction.
I actually don't think it's learning personal preferences like you suggest either.
It likely is a collaborative filtering method. You get served what people "similar to you" have watched most. Similarity is based on your watching behavior. If you watched 1,2,5,6,7 and someone else 1,2,6,7,8. You will be recommended 8 as well.
It would be interesting to come up with an algorithm that suggest favorites of subgroups of viewers you don't belong to.