Discussion 3.1

I've known for quite a while that web based algorithms are imperfect. The main problem with them lies in the fact that thay base their output directly on their input. This allows for all searches and commercial interests to be tailored based on algorithmic predictors based on not just your own historical data, but also endless other compiled data to be compared with. An algorithm or any running formula is not biased on it's own; it relies on input and the resulting bias is clearly a result of this data. As there is a definite vested commercial interest, just as with Google and other search engines that provide preferred results (marked as sponsored). Early in my scholastic days (1999), one of our instructors had an assignment where we were to interact with an on-line AI that had been developed by programmers from a college that I can't remember; but it was running on algorithms. When I logged on and went through introductions, the presence (a poorly rendered female sprite) began to take the conversation to an inappropriate context, and began to explicitly berate me with the coherence of poorly translated swearing from foreigners when I declined the weird sexually charged invitations. THe next day in class, a number of ribald young fellows bragged loudly that they had in fact engaged quite dirtily with the AI, and even had roommates joining in and had provided the link to friends and relatives. The class wondered aloud how it came to be that the AI had learned such interactions, all the while the answer in large part was sitting amongst us guffawing about their exploits. It later came out that the project was scrapped due to the majority of the visitors going to see how dirty they could get with the AI project, and it had unintended consequences and an unforseen outcome for the programmers. I guess that this sort of speaks to what Noble and O'Neil are speaking about; the algorithms of search engines are absolutely biased due to the fact that the data gathered and never-ending input is tailored based upon what people are actually searching for, whether it's an ethnic fetish, political fodder, or the cheapest prices for cereal, it's all in there and the scenarios of each have played out in full billions of times with a guided interest almost the whole time.