Good question. Iām not sure why youād privilege Russellās explanation over the explanation āpeople click on extreme political content, so the click-maximizing algorithm feeds them extreme political context.ā
Right. I mean, I privilege this simpler explanation you mention. He seems to have reason to think itās not the right explanation, but I canāt figure out why.
I think the āso that they become more predictable [to the recommender algorithm]ā is crucial in Russelās argument. IF human preferences were malleable in this way, and IF recommender algorithms are strong enough to detect that malleability, then the pressures towards the behaviour that Russel suggests is strong and we have a lot of reasons to expect it. I think the answer to both IFs is likely to be yes.
I just donāt think weāve seen anything that favors the hypothesis āalgorithm āintentionallyā radicalizes people in order to get more clicks from them in the long runā over the hypothesis āalgorithm shows people what they will click on the most (which is often extreme political content, and this causes them to become more radical, in a self-reinforcing cycle.)ā
Good question. Iām not sure why youād privilege Russellās explanation over the explanation āpeople click on extreme political content, so the click-maximizing algorithm feeds them extreme political context.ā
Right. I mean, I privilege this simpler explanation you mention. He seems to have reason to think itās not the right explanation, but I canāt figure out why.
I think the āso that they become more predictable [to the recommender algorithm]ā is crucial in Russelās argument. IF human preferences were malleable in this way, and IF recommender algorithms are strong enough to detect that malleability, then the pressures towards the behaviour that Russel suggests is strong and we have a lot of reasons to expect it. I think the answer to both IFs is likely to be yes.
I just donāt think weāve seen anything that favors the hypothesis āalgorithm āintentionallyā radicalizes people in order to get more clicks from them in the long runā over the hypothesis āalgorithm shows people what they will click on the most (which is often extreme political content, and this causes them to become more radical, in a self-reinforcing cycle.)ā