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Miles Archer

(18,837 posts)
Wed Aug 31, 2016, 07:48 AM Aug 2016

Facebook fires trending team, and algorithm without humans goes crazy

Facebook fires trending team, and algorithm without humans goes crazy

Module pushes out false story about Fox’s Megyn Kelly, offensive Ann Coulter headline and a story link about a man masturbating with a McDonald’s sandwich

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm

Just months after the discovery that Facebook’s “trending” news module was curated and tweaked by human beings, the company has eliminated its editors and left the algorithm to do its job. The results, so far, are a disaster.

Facebook announced late Friday that it had eliminated jobs in its trending module, the part of its news division where staff curated popular news for Facebook users. Over the weekend, the fully automated Facebook trending module pushed out a false story about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, a controversial piece about a comedian’s four-letter word attack on rightwing pundit Ann Coulter, and links to an article about a video of a man masturbating with a McDonald’s chicken sandwich.

A source familiar with the matter told the Guardian that the trending team was fired without notice in a meeting with a security guard present. The ex-employees received four weeks’ severance.

The past weekend has been less than auspicious for Facebook’s new, inhuman workforce: on Saturday, the site pushed an article to some of its users entitled: “BREAKING: Fox News Exposes Traitor Megyn Kelly, Kicks Her Out For Backing Hillary.” Megyn Kelly is still employed by Fox News and has not endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
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Facebook fires trending team, and algorithm without humans goes crazy (Original Post) Miles Archer Aug 2016 OP
When Skynet takes over, just remember I warned you. nt msanthrope Aug 2016 #1
Sounds almost as bad as Microsoft's "Tay." LAGC Aug 2016 #2
When AI is really SkyNet level this is why it will wage war on us GummyBearz Aug 2016 #3

LAGC

(5,330 posts)
2. Sounds almost as bad as Microsoft's "Tay."
Wed Aug 31, 2016, 09:12 AM
Aug 2016

Trolls and pranksters turned that "intelligent" attempt at a bot into a foul-mouthed Nazi mouth-breather within 24 hours.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist



A.I. definitely ain't ready for prime time yet.

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