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Google Autocomplete Still Makes Vile Suggestions (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In December of 2016, Google announced it had fixed a troubling quirk of its autocomplete feature: When users typed in the phrase, "are jews," Google automatically suggested the question, "are jews evil?" Almost a year after removing the "are jews evil?" prompt, Google search still drags up a range of awful autocomplete suggestions for queries related to gender, race, religion, and Adolf Hitler. Google appears still unable to effectively police results that are offensive, and potentially dangerous -- especially on a platform that two billion people rely on for information. Like journalist Carol Cadwalladr, who broke the news about the "are jews evil" suggestion in 2016, I too felt a certain kind of queasiness experimenting with search terms like, "Islamists are," "blacks are," "Hitler is," and "feminists are." The results were even worse. For the term "Islamists are," Google suggested I might in fact want to search, "Islamists are not our friends," or "Islamists are evil." For the term, "blacks are," Google prompted me to search, "blacks are not oppressed."
The term "Hitler is," autocompleted to, among other things, "Hitler is my hero."
Google showed me something I don't agree with! Better run back to my safe space and hide with my teddy bear. - smh
Also worth noting that Google customizes its completions and suggestions based on what you look at. If you're getting results that include "kill all the jews" and "why are jews evil" - it's because Google has recognized that you seem to search for stuff like that a lot.
This trips people up a lot when they post "hilarious" Google autocomplete results where Google recommends really weird fetishes related to some benign search - not realizing that what they're actually showing the world is that they frequently search for some bizarre fetish, so Google thinks they're always interested in it.
whenever a moral outrage happens over some tardy phrase like that (last time, it was "how to have sex with kids"), the media shitstorm actually amplifies the phrase
As a parent, I read that search as being shorthand for "how to have sex with kids in the house"...
I thought Islamists was a term created specifically to differentiate the bad Muslims. (e.g. Muslims aren't bad, it's the Islamists that are bad). I don't think this is unreasonable. I don't think it's fair to say "Christians are bad" whenever some Jesus cult does some crazy shit, but at the same time, I wouldn't expect google to come with good results for "christian fundamentalists" or similar terms.
Alphabet is run by a bunch of pussies that will cave in to the request.
Otherwise, youtube would have told the advertisers "Where the hell are you going to go, TV?" when they threatened to pull there ad's over some bullshit showing on a youtube video.
Normally this leads to vile thinking to express this statement as true.
Most modern racist statements goes off the following ideas. 1. Racism isn't a problem 2. The minority group wants more then it deserves 3. We should stop such groups from demanding more. 4. We should role back any special considerations for them 5. We should give preference to the majority group
I am not a racist, but I agree with part of this list. For all intents and purposes I am white (I have negligible traces of Native American blood). My wife is Latina with 20% Native American and 9% African blood.
1. Racism IS a problem.
2. Many minority groups DO want more than they deserve
3. Anyone should be able to demand anything they want, but that doesn't mean we should pander to them.
4. We SHOULD roll back Affirmative Action type programs which are racist by design. Racists will find ways around the regulations while the regulations actually hurt white males for nothing more than being white males.
5. NO individual should receive preferential treatment / consideration based on race or gender.
Do you feel that my views of these 5 talking points make me a racist?
The vast bulk of humanity is, in the words of Citizen Ted, "a worthless morass of lying, defecating chimpanzees".
My experience is that the vast bulk of humanity are decent people. We shouldn't let a the bottom 10% ruin everything just because they shout the loudest. Slashdot accomplishes that with the moderation system, which can be abused but mostly works well.
What precisely should Google do about this?
I think the best solution is to disable autocomplete for racial and religious terms. That is a neutral approach, and doesn't need constant monitoring.
If they are developing AI that will replace us all, that's enough.
That is a good long term solution. But until Humanity 2.0 is out of beta, we still need to deal with the world as it is.