You expect them to tell you?
It is uncomfortable to read an article when every reader of the article is certain to know more than the author about the subject. Computer software always has algorithms. It is not a skill they have just acquired. And the use of algorithms goes back before computers existed.
I don’t like where this article seems to be going. Can an algorithm tell me where it’s going or can it only tell me where it thinks it’s going?...The latter, I think.
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I’m thinking that well-designed algorithms could eliminate bias. For instance, an algorithm that screens college applications and weighs relevant grades and other performance factors in order to determine whether applicants are suitable and likely to finish college.
Not that such an algorithm would likely be used for long. The race-baiters have too much vested interested in accepting low-achieving students who are not white or Asian to allow any unbiased selection method to survive.
This shows the authors total ignorance. For most of us who are educated, algorithms pre-date electronic computers and go back to the ancient Greeks.
When it bleeds, it leads is a famous news selection algorithm.
First we identify a problem. Then we assume it is the role of government to solve all problems. Then we discuss which government program considers all the factors of fairness in addressing the problem. Then we discuss behind the scenes how to present the best government program to the public in a way that the public will accept it. Then we present it to the public. Then, when the public resists, we attack ad hominem the leaders of the resistance and destroy their credibility. This is another common algorithm in the news media.
Computers doing algorithms are necessary solely because the volume of data is too large, the the number of problems for the government to solve is too large, for humans to consider all the points of fairness and unfairness.
Big government didn't work in the past (eg LBJ's best and brightest technocrats) because not even the geniuses could handle the massive amount of data. But now with Big Data in Big Computers we can finally get Big Government right.
How's that for an algorithm?
...for which it’s impossible to know exactly how they work.
It’s dumbfounding to learn that the cyclical behavior patterns of a former VP of the United States can have such an effect on my life.