Guillaume Chaslot was a software engineer at Google. He improved the YouTube recommendation engine, according to his LinkedIn page.
Years after leaving Google he set up AlgoTransparency - their “mission is to expose the impact of the most influential algorithms”.
In 2018, soon after starting AlgoTransparency, Chaslot tweeted about the YouTube algorithm - the wording of the tweet has stayed with me.
Chaslot:
“The YouTube algorithm I worked on heavily promoted Brexit, because divisiveness is efficient for watch time, and watch time leads to ads.
“Brits deserve deserve to know what @YouTube's AI promoted by the millions during the referendum.
“Without transparency there is no democracy”
I’ve also seen Twitter and Facebook encourage conflict, all because:
“divisiveness is efficient for watch time, and watch time leads to ads.”
Elsewhere
Reminds me of: Les Moonves, former chief executive of the CBS TV network, celebrating Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in February 2016 at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in San Francisco. Stating, that it “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.”… “So what can I say? The money’s rolling in, this is fun,”.
Samoa Joe, wrestler, on social media: “In case you don’t know the formula Hot takes = engagement= Algorithm placement= views= $$ . Some of you are playing yourselves trying to win these arguments . Remember you’re not the consumer here, You’re the product.”
Related: Whenever former large tech employees grow a conscience and want to make amends for their actions, I often think of this skewering tweet by @calebsaysthings:
“hello, my name is Chip Brockman. I was the SVP of Innovating New Brain Diseases at Facebook for three years. before that, I was the Director of Monetizing Depression at Pinterest.
“now that I’ve gotten rich from that, I’m here to talk about the dangers of technol”