DMS Weekly
September 19, 2021
New Parent/Community Members of School Site Council
Save the Date for Parent/Teacher Conferences on October 14th!
Why Do Algorithms Feel Creepy?
Why Do Algorithms Feel Creepy?
The Wall Street Journal recently published a video investigating how TikTok, a social-media platform with one of the most advanced algorithms, is able to detect our deepest desires. (I strongly encourage you to watch it). The Journal set up a number of “fake” accounts run by artificial intelligence, programmed to have certain interests.
In one example of an account that was designed to be interested in sad and depressing content, it only took TikTok 36 minutes of watch time to recognize the interests of the account. By observing engaging actions taken by the fake account—every video watched and liked—it didn’t take long for 93 percent of the content TikTok served to the account to be related to depression or sadness.
In this (unfortunately quite common) example, a depressed user could be driven further into depression because the algorithm is more concerned with keeping the user interested than in alleviating depressive thoughts. Algorithms aren’t interested in helping us heal or become better. They’re more than happy to figure out exactly how we are broken, and what content our broken selves might find irresistible.