"Fear the algorithms that control your life"
Translation of an interview with Kevin Slavin, a game developer from New York, co-founder of Area / Code (now Zynga NY). He conducts a course of computing and design at New York University, and in July, he gave a lecture at the TED conference on the topic of life algorithmization ( videotape of the lecture ). The interview was published in the New Scientist magazine (issue 2826, 08/22/2011).
You claim that our life is controlled by algorithms. How?
Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions that a computer uses to make a decision. These are like invisible rules that describe almost everything that happens around. Prices for goods in the store, the cost of movies in the rental, the appearance of your car - all this can be tracked right down to the original algorithm. Seventy percent of transactions in the US stock market are algorithmized, that is, performed automatically by computer algorithms.
Why should we be bothered?
A dangerous property of algorithms is in their mathematical truth, which makes it appear that the algorithms are neutral, but each algorithm has an author. For example, Google’s search engine is entirely based on sophisticated mathematics, but its algorithms, like all other algorithms, are based on a certain idea - in this case, the idea is that the page’s value rises if other pages link to it. Each algorithm has its own point of view, but often we do not know it, or do not even suspect the existence of an algorithm.
You believe that algorithms are starting to shape our culture. How does this happen?
Take the Netflix online movie rental service, which is used by 20 million people. For 60% of all films that were leased, the decision was made at the prompting of the Netflix recommendation system. It works on the basis of an algorithm called Pragmatic Chaos , which takes into account your tastes and your ratings of other films. The algorithm copies the model of human behavior from the real world and encodes it for automatic use in the online system.
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The danger is that such an approach could lead to the creation of a monoculture. This culture does not work in this way, it is much less predictable. For example, there is the film “ Napoleon Dynamite ”, which always “breaks” the Netflix algorithm: people who should like the movie hate it, and vice versa - who really should hate the movie, give him the highest marks.
Why should we be so worried about the influence of algorithms on culture?
If you know about the participation of algorithms, you can change your behavior. If you know that most of your “choices” on Netflix are based on a very specific model of the human brain that may not correspond to reality, maybe you will start asking your friends what they recommend - as we used to do before.
It is also important to understand how algorithms determine the information that enters our brain. In the US, there is a quiet war between Google and a company called Demand Media , which generates optimized content for the search engine. As soon as Google changes its algorithm, the delivery of Demand Media becomes useless until they analyze the changes in the Google algorithm and correct their article generator.
Previously, news was written for people - now they are written for cars. Imagine if we all changed our handwriting to make it better suited for character recognition systems. This is exactly what is happening now, only in our head. This affects our speech and behavior.
How else do the algorithms change our world?
They change the infrastructure and landscape. For example, look at New York. Wall Street became a world trade center because all the ships and cargoes came here. Later, the Western Union building became the center of communication, because the entire telecommunications infrastructure passed through it.
However, today the Wall Street network center is located in the small town of Mahva, New Jersey, because it was the safest place to accommodate critical infrastructure - fifteen kilometers from Wall Street, but at the maximum distance from nuclear power plants, tectonic faults and air routes. All buildings built here are needed to house and cool servers that run algorithms - there are almost no people in these buildings. They are designed exclusively for the network topology.
So, algorithms affect the layout of cities?
Yes, because the execution speed is a key element of their effectiveness, and the speed is determined by the proximity to the network nodes. If you can complete transactions faster than others, then you have a huge advantage. Fiber optic cable used to be laid along the railway, but now everything has changed, because railways go along winding routes, connecting cities, and this is too slow for algorithms. For them, it is better to lay cables in straight lines. One company called Spread Networks did just that: they laid a 1,300 km cable along the shortest path between New York and Chicago, just to save milliseconds on transactions between the two exchanges.
Tell us more about these financial algorithms. They are probably classified and very valuable ...
True, but sometimes they leak into open access. One of the algorithms of Goldman Sachs was published on the Internet. They conducted a whole investigation to find out the reasons for how this happened.
Can algorithms get out of control?
Here is an example. A graduate student wants to buy a copy of The Making of a Fly textbook on evolutionary biology on Amazon. There are 17 copies available for sale, prices start at $ 40, but two copies cost $ 1.7 million each. When the guy checked a little later, the price jumped to $ 27 million. He tried to find out what had happened . It turned out that two price setting algorithms fell into a cycle - each changed its price depending on the price change of the other. Since the algorithms have rules for changing prices, but there is no common sense, the process continued without stopping.
It will probably not be very fun if financial algorithms start behaving in this way.
Yes. It was just an algorithm for setting prices, but Wall Street programs not only set prices, but also actually make deals. The Amazon case is completely harmless, because the purchase must still be carried out by a person who is able to say: "This is insanity, I am not going to pay twenty-seven million dollars for a book!" But if algorithms were used for the purchase, as it happens on Wall Street, the price could go up to infinity until it reaches the technical limit set by the system.
Has this ever happened?
Something similar happened on the exchanges on May 6, 2010 (the so-called Flash Crash ), when 9% of the US stock market suddenly evaporated within a few minutes. One theory says that an unusually large selling order from one of the trading algorithms was the catalyst for these events, after which all other high-speed trading algorithms began to sell and resell at high speed, plunging the market into chaos.
Some people think that you exaggerate the risk of algorithms.
I agree that the algorithms are of great benefit. But I think it is important to understand also the inconspicuous things that are starting to happen around us. I do not think that this is the end of the world, but it seems to me that we need to work out strict rules to make them visible.
What can this lead to?
In a science fiction version, my friend Russell Davis suggested that in a thousand years there would be no people or companies left, and computer algorithms would continue to trade stocks that disappeared many years ago.
You claim that our life is controlled by algorithms. How?
Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions that a computer uses to make a decision. These are like invisible rules that describe almost everything that happens around. Prices for goods in the store, the cost of movies in the rental, the appearance of your car - all this can be tracked right down to the original algorithm. Seventy percent of transactions in the US stock market are algorithmized, that is, performed automatically by computer algorithms.
Why should we be bothered?
A dangerous property of algorithms is in their mathematical truth, which makes it appear that the algorithms are neutral, but each algorithm has an author. For example, Google’s search engine is entirely based on sophisticated mathematics, but its algorithms, like all other algorithms, are based on a certain idea - in this case, the idea is that the page’s value rises if other pages link to it. Each algorithm has its own point of view, but often we do not know it, or do not even suspect the existence of an algorithm.
You believe that algorithms are starting to shape our culture. How does this happen?
Take the Netflix online movie rental service, which is used by 20 million people. For 60% of all films that were leased, the decision was made at the prompting of the Netflix recommendation system. It works on the basis of an algorithm called Pragmatic Chaos , which takes into account your tastes and your ratings of other films. The algorithm copies the model of human behavior from the real world and encodes it for automatic use in the online system.
')
The danger is that such an approach could lead to the creation of a monoculture. This culture does not work in this way, it is much less predictable. For example, there is the film “ Napoleon Dynamite ”, which always “breaks” the Netflix algorithm: people who should like the movie hate it, and vice versa - who really should hate the movie, give him the highest marks.
Why should we be so worried about the influence of algorithms on culture?
If you know about the participation of algorithms, you can change your behavior. If you know that most of your “choices” on Netflix are based on a very specific model of the human brain that may not correspond to reality, maybe you will start asking your friends what they recommend - as we used to do before.
It is also important to understand how algorithms determine the information that enters our brain. In the US, there is a quiet war between Google and a company called Demand Media , which generates optimized content for the search engine. As soon as Google changes its algorithm, the delivery of Demand Media becomes useless until they analyze the changes in the Google algorithm and correct their article generator.
Previously, news was written for people - now they are written for cars. Imagine if we all changed our handwriting to make it better suited for character recognition systems. This is exactly what is happening now, only in our head. This affects our speech and behavior.
How else do the algorithms change our world?
They change the infrastructure and landscape. For example, look at New York. Wall Street became a world trade center because all the ships and cargoes came here. Later, the Western Union building became the center of communication, because the entire telecommunications infrastructure passed through it.
However, today the Wall Street network center is located in the small town of Mahva, New Jersey, because it was the safest place to accommodate critical infrastructure - fifteen kilometers from Wall Street, but at the maximum distance from nuclear power plants, tectonic faults and air routes. All buildings built here are needed to house and cool servers that run algorithms - there are almost no people in these buildings. They are designed exclusively for the network topology.
So, algorithms affect the layout of cities?
Yes, because the execution speed is a key element of their effectiveness, and the speed is determined by the proximity to the network nodes. If you can complete transactions faster than others, then you have a huge advantage. Fiber optic cable used to be laid along the railway, but now everything has changed, because railways go along winding routes, connecting cities, and this is too slow for algorithms. For them, it is better to lay cables in straight lines. One company called Spread Networks did just that: they laid a 1,300 km cable along the shortest path between New York and Chicago, just to save milliseconds on transactions between the two exchanges.
Tell us more about these financial algorithms. They are probably classified and very valuable ...
True, but sometimes they leak into open access. One of the algorithms of Goldman Sachs was published on the Internet. They conducted a whole investigation to find out the reasons for how this happened.
Can algorithms get out of control?
Here is an example. A graduate student wants to buy a copy of The Making of a Fly textbook on evolutionary biology on Amazon. There are 17 copies available for sale, prices start at $ 40, but two copies cost $ 1.7 million each. When the guy checked a little later, the price jumped to $ 27 million. He tried to find out what had happened . It turned out that two price setting algorithms fell into a cycle - each changed its price depending on the price change of the other. Since the algorithms have rules for changing prices, but there is no common sense, the process continued without stopping.
It will probably not be very fun if financial algorithms start behaving in this way.
Yes. It was just an algorithm for setting prices, but Wall Street programs not only set prices, but also actually make deals. The Amazon case is completely harmless, because the purchase must still be carried out by a person who is able to say: "This is insanity, I am not going to pay twenty-seven million dollars for a book!" But if algorithms were used for the purchase, as it happens on Wall Street, the price could go up to infinity until it reaches the technical limit set by the system.
Has this ever happened?
Something similar happened on the exchanges on May 6, 2010 (the so-called Flash Crash ), when 9% of the US stock market suddenly evaporated within a few minutes. One theory says that an unusually large selling order from one of the trading algorithms was the catalyst for these events, after which all other high-speed trading algorithms began to sell and resell at high speed, plunging the market into chaos.
Some people think that you exaggerate the risk of algorithms.
I agree that the algorithms are of great benefit. But I think it is important to understand also the inconspicuous things that are starting to happen around us. I do not think that this is the end of the world, but it seems to me that we need to work out strict rules to make them visible.
What can this lead to?
In a science fiction version, my friend Russell Davis suggested that in a thousand years there would be no people or companies left, and computer algorithms would continue to trade stocks that disappeared many years ago.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/126856/
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