My wife borrowed a device called the Google Mini (appliance). Like Amazon’s Echo with Alexa, it is the device connecting the user to the company’s AI algorithms (algos) in the cloud thorough voice recognition and interpretation.
I struggle with it every night in setting it for bedtime music. I would have said “argue” because I end up yelling at it, but such requires a degree of intelligence – on the other side to be effective – and maybe my side to come to think of it. A grown man talking to and yelling at a hockey puck-sized object is not an image that I want to get out. The algos are getting better but the good news is you don’t have anything to worry about any time soon.
Since we don’t have TV, I watch a lot of YouTube served by a ROKU streaming media device. Google’s YouTube algos have a deficiency similar to the puck. They offer categories of videos, but I don’t need to see one on ‘rain’ or ‘NBA’, or ‘Jet aircraft’. I really want to watch 6 hours of rain only once. And I never want to watch an NBA game. But they keep trying.
They have a ‘recommended’ category which I usually browse across. This is where I get the odd piece on something that may be new to me. Even that can be abused. The algos think you want to see more of something that you may have glanced at, reinforcing your confirmation bias.
I watched a bit of what I think was a sitcom in Vietnamese. I didn’t need to understand the dialogue to determine that the antics of the actors were as inane as a North American one. I have no way of telling the algos that I never want to see another one. They keep trying.
The interview that I published of Dinesh D’Souza by Candace Owens would be a conservative viewpoint, although that doesn’t mean that their analysis is inaccurate or biased. Which brings me to this interview that the algos, to their amusement, served up.
This is an interview of the leftist economist Richard Wolff by Julianna Forlano of ACT.TV. ACT.TV is gives “progressive movement coverage”. Here it is (24:05 minutes):
Commentary
This guy is bang on! Wolff gives an excellent analysis of our current economic situation. It is all a statement of fact, not opinion. The interviewer’s progressive mindset leaks out a bit – sometimes a lot, but she mostly keeps her mouth shut and Wolff doesn’t fall into it.
Around the 18 minute mark, his Marxist view of labour comes out, but this in fact is the reality and may be a major part of the dynamic of change in this cycle. In fact, this may be the most important aspect of the interview.
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