Poll of the Day > The youtube algorithm might actually employ psychics

(+) Yeah! (+)

I in no way in the last year or so of youtubing, social media'ing, texting, gaming, TV'ing, movieing, everything-ing have thought of the game Scribblenauts.

Last night I thought of Scribblenauts when I was going to bed, today, Youtube recommended, 2 videos on Scribblenauts

WTF

Algorithms have become so advanced that human thought patterns have started to become predictable. Our consciousness is just a series of chemical reactions that prioritizes our experiences in a hierarchy, with survival as the foundation. Free will is an illusion; your destiny is predetermined by your brain's chemical responses to stimuli mostly generated by other predestined individuals. And Google knows this. Consume Arby's.

You may not think you were thinking of the one thing, but the Internet and its algorithmic design has led you from one thought to the next, and herded you into the thought. It was inevitable. What all we will do next is inevitable.

I always assume at this point that something in my house is spying on me. I'll be talking about something completely random downstairs, then later I'll go upstairs and like four rooms away to where my laptop is and YouTube will recommend something directly related to what I was talking about.

Like in your example, if I mentioned Scribblenauts in my downstairs conversation, the next time I go on YouTube I'd see at least one Scribblenauts-based video, in spite of never having seen a single Scribblenauts video in my recommendations in the last five years, nor having looked at any videos that would even remotely connect to it.

Can't even blame the ubiquitous smart phone that's probably spying on everyone else, because I don't have one. Or an Alexa, or anything else that you'd usually suspect to be listening. Even my cable box is like 10 years old.

I do have a smart TV, but I've never given it the password to my network and have never set it up to connect to the Internet at all, so in theory it shouldn't be able to talk to anyone either. So I have no idea how the hell YouTube seems to figure out what I've been talking about unless they've planted bugs in my house somehow.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I always assume at this point that something in my house is spying on me. I'll be talking about something completely random downstairs, then later I'll go upstairs and like four rooms away to where my laptop is and YouTube will recommend something directly related to what I was talking about.

Like in your example, if I mentioned Scribblenauts in my downstairs conversation, the next time I go on YouTube I'd see at least one Scribblenauts-based video, in spite of never having seen a single Scribblenauts video in my recommendations in the last five years, nor having looked at any videos that would even remotely connect to it.

Can't even blame the ubiquitous smart phone that's probably spying on everyone else, because I don't have one. Or an Alexa, or anything else that you'd usually suspect to be listening. Even my cable box is like 10 years old.

I do have a smart TV, but I've never given it the password to my network and have never set it up to connect to the Internet at all, so in theory it shouldn't be able to talk to anyone either. So I have no idea how the hell YouTube seems to figure out what I've been talking about unless they've planted bugs in my house somehow.

This is it, it may sound like some conspiracy but there are absolutely things Corps collect from you they shouldn't be collecting.

*goes to youtube*
*sees no anime*
*types in anime recap*
*watches a video about a guy being reinacated to become a pharmacist/magician"
*goes to youtube homepage*
Every video is anime related, except one. That one is a girl's summer vacation morning routine?
I don't even...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I always assume at this point that something in my house is spying on me. I'll be talking about something completely random downstairs, then later I'll go upstairs and like four rooms away to where my laptop is and YouTube will recommend something directly related to what I was talking about.

Like in your example, if I mentioned Scribblenauts in my downstairs conversation, the next time I go on YouTube I'd see at least one Scribblenauts-based video, in spite of never having seen a single Scribblenauts video in my recommendations in the last five years, nor having looked at any videos that would even remotely connect to it.

Can't even blame the ubiquitous smart phone that's probably spying on everyone else, because I don't have one. Or an Alexa, or anything else that you'd usually suspect to be listening. Even my cable box is like 10 years old.

I do have a smart TV, but I've never given it the password to my network and have never set it up to connect to the Internet at all, so in theory it shouldn't be able to talk to anyone either. So I have no idea how the hell YouTube seems to figure out what I've been talking about unless they've planted bugs in my house somehow.

Your smart TV probably has some account that is linked to an account on your laptop though. That's probably what it is

faramir77 posted...

Free will is an illusion;

I have been to the Tomb of Sarafan, Kain. Your dirty secret is exposed! How
could you transform a Sarafan priest into a vampire!?

Zagoth_Triome posted...

depressing

You mean because the notion of machines being programmed well enough to be able to decipher the human mind makes the human mind seem far less significant, far less complex than is comfortable for us as human beings to accept? Or is it because the same algorithms that read the patterns of an internet-goer's mind are also partially responsible for manipulating it into falling into those very patterns, which provides no small comfort for those questioning their state as human beings, a state that is something that is beyond anyone's ability to control, and moreover, a state that is beyond anyone's desire to change?

OhhhJa posted...

Your smart TV probably has some account that is linked to an account on your laptop though. That's probably what it is

Except I didn't set anything up along those lines. No apps, no accounts, no access.

So if something like that does exist, it means that my smart TV (which was never allowed permission to use a wifi network and is supposed to be completely offline) somehow located my laptop and burrowed into it like a parasite. Or my laptop has somehow gone looking for unconnected hardware within a nearby radius and established secret connections to it that it refuses to admit to me.

Either way, it would mean that something which shouldn't be spying is spying, and passing info on to something it shouldn't be talking to, so it's still fucked up beyond belief regardless.

They do have listening devices in your house. Your phone. The microphones in your laptop or webcam. The microphones in your handheld consoles and controllers and headsets. Your voice activated smart devices. Your ring camera. etc. etc.

papercup posted...

They do have listening devices in your house. Your phone. The microphones in your laptop or webcam. The microphones in your handheld consoles and controllers and headsets. Your voice activated smart devices. Your ring camera. etc. etc.

Yeah, but I don't have half of those (no Ring, no voice-activated smart devices, no webcam, no headsets, no smart phones).

And the ones I do have (laptop mic, console mics, a landline phone) aren't actually in the rooms where I'm talking, so in theory they shouldn't be able to hear anything through multiple walls and doors unless they are borderline spy tech sensitive.

So either something that isn't supposed to have a mic is listening and something that isn't supposed to be Internet connected is communicating with something it shouldn't be, or it's a phenomenal coincidence and a weird case of apophenia.

Your devices track people you're close to. If you live with or near somebody thinking about Scribblenauts, you could get recommended Scribblenauts

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Yeah, but I don't have half of those (no Ring, no voice-activated smart devices, no webcam, no headsets, no smart phones).

And the ones I do have (laptop mic, console mics, a landline phone) aren't actually in the rooms where I'm talking, so in theory they shouldn't be able to hear anything through multiple walls and doors unless they are borderline spy tech sensitive.

So either something that isn't supposed to have a mic is listening and something that isn't supposed to be Internet connected is communicating with something it shouldn't be, or it's a phenomenal coincidence and a weird case of apophenia.

It's the dishwasher.

Clarke's Third Law.

I've been pretty good about not bringing smart devices into my apartment, so I haven't seen any weird algorithm behavior.

"How Nickelback Became The Most Hated Band" in my recommendations when I didn't even click on the Nickleback thread.

Revelation34 posted...

It's the dishwasher.

Don't have one.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Don't have one.

My condolences.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I always assume at this point that something in my house is spying on me. I'll be talking about something completely random downstairs, then later I'll go upstairs and like four rooms away to where my laptop is and YouTube will recommend something directly related to what I was talking about.

I'm fairly certain Youtube and Google do not need to spy on you. At this point either you, the people you talk to, or some combination thereof, have been strung along from one stimulus or idea to the next, and the conversation has been pre-determined to fit the algorithm, rather than the algorithm made to fit each of seven billion people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8fJPvXyfc0

Your Google phone could know literally anything about you from the audio it hears to the way you move the gyroscopes to your search history, over the last 8 years, thrown into a billion dollar algorithm, it might be able to diagnose you with cancer before your doctor based off "the vibes you give off"

Oh well.

I recommend the books The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Algorithms of Oppression to get some insight into how and why tech companies, specifically Google (though the former book touches on multiple big tech giants), create their algorithms and how theyre so good at predicting and herding human behavior and impulse, that at this point they dont even need to spy on you for you to get creepily relevant targeted ads/content.

JigsawTDCII posted...

I recommend the books The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Algorithms of Oppression to get some insight into how and why tech companies, specifically Google (though the former book touches on multiple big tech giants), create their algorithms and how theyre so good at predicting and herding human behavior and impulse, that at this point they dont even need to spy on you for you to get creepily relevant targeted ads/content.

Sounds on par to what I was saying earlier.

While it's more likely shit spying on you, I sometimes imagine these systems aren't so much predicting our thoughts as they are influencing them. Although it's also possible they showed you something that you completely forgot and then when you saw it again you attached more significance to it.

Granted, the algorithms can also be colossally stupid in terms of ads and recommendations because they don't always understand intent. Just because I google something doesn't mean it pertains to me, yet I'll get shit based on things I googled for citations and references that have no personal relevance to me.