diff --git a/site/posts/2020-06-05-algorithmic-bias.md b/site/posts/2020-06-05-algorithmic-bias.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffb34d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/posts/2020-06-05-algorithmic-bias.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +``` +metadata.title = "Algorithmic Bias" +metadata.category = "misc" +metadata.date = "2020-06-05 09:55:42 -0400" +metadata.shortDesc = "" +``` + +I am subscribed to Marques Brownlee on YouTube. I watch almost every one of his videos. YouTube is smart. It knows this, it recommends me almost all of his videos. But not this one. No matter how many times I refresh the page. No matter how far down the page I scroll. Despite the fact that the video has gotten 2.3 million views in 16 hours, performing better than a number of his recent videos. Despite the fact that it's recommending me videos that are from people I am not subscribed to, videos that are years old, videos that I have watched before, videos that are about politics, videos that are about the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder. + +This is what algorithmic bias looks like. **Algorithms are not neutral.**[^1] + +
+ YouTube thumbnail of an MKBHD video +
A screenshot of the thumbnail for a YouTube video from MKBHD titled "Reflecting on the Color of My Skin".
+
+ +[^1]: "Algorithm" is a word here used not in the purely computer science sense, but to mean a element of software which operates in a black box, often with a machine learning component, with little or no human supervision, input, or control. diff --git a/site/static/2020/algorithmic-bias/youtube_thumb.png b/site/static/2020/algorithmic-bias/youtube_thumb.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a160164 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/static/2020/algorithmic-bias/youtube_thumb.png differ