Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

Re:Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagio... by acd on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @02:17AM (#23841931)

I think AI recommendations algorithms are too unregulated. Say a person is having or had for example a depression. Recommendation algorithms for advertising tech wants customer to stay on site and view content to sell advertising. So potentially recommendations algorithms could recommend videos or content that transfers depressed or other emotional states to viewers as long as it generates ad revenue. Depending on what the algorithms senses what others in the same emotional state are viewing. What is the legal liability For transfer these emotions for companies providing these platforms?

On the other side the platform could transfer positive emotions. The issue I see is that we have unregulated emotional and potentially addiction transfers directly to consumers brains. What I mean for cigarettes there is warning here there is nothing but the product is probably as addictive minus health effects.

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Re:Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagio... by raxxorrax on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @03:02AM (#23842160)

AI recommendations is something for bored people in my opinion. Sure, you may stumble upon content you would not have considered, but the examples people tend to bring up aren't too convincing.

Some might think that showing depressed people some cute dog pics would lighten them up, but that isn't how it works. On the contrary, the expectations towards themselves to be happy can be counterproductive.

I believe this is the crux of the matter, since social media tends to load people with expectations, depression or not and advertisers try to use this handle to promoted their products.

If a site would try to "transfer positive emotions" I would be seriously concerned. Humans don't even know what content would be best for an individual. How would you train an AI? From resonance of other users? No, that leaves out a lot of context.

But I still don't think AI curators should be regulated, because the quality of regulation would certainly be horrible.

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Re:Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagio... by satokema_work on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @10:11AM (#23845447)

In some places though (see: algorithmic views of the primary content e.e. facebook or twitter, youtube recs), the recommendations can't be disabled.

You cannot avoid the machine entirely, and all it might take is showing a thumbnail or a preview of something to you.

This sort of thing has led me to getting off those services.

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