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Algorithms Are People
The secret sauce of search engines gives tech companies an abundance of plausible deniability.
Fussell, Sidney http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/is-amazons-search-algorithm-biased-its-hard-to-prove/598264/
Publisher: The Atlantic
Date Written: 18/09/2019
Year Published: 2019
Resource Type: Article
Amazon, Google, and other tech platforms deny interfering with their respective search algorithms, to boost profits or sidestep regulations. Because of the murky mechanics of how search works, proving the allegations is nearly impossible.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
Amazon is incredibly good at making money, which is why the possibility that it's privileging its own products in its search tool is ringing alarm bells. Amazon controls the marketing, manufacturing, and distribution of its private-label products as well as the marketplace they're sold on. Rigging the search algorithm, if the allegations are true, would only compound its advantages....
Algorithms interpret potentially millions of data points, and the exact path from input to conclusion can be difficult to make plain. But the effects are clear. This is a very powerful asymmetry: Anyone can notice a change in search results, but it’s extremely difficult to prove what caused it. That gives algorithm designers immense deniability.
In 2016, for example, Bloomberg reported that Amazon Prime was much less likely to offer same-day service to predominantly black and Latino suburbs in Boston and New York. The algorithm that determines eligible neighborhoods, Amazon explained, was designed to determine the cost of providing Prime, based on an area’s distance from warehouses, number of Prime members, and so on. That explanation, Bloomberg reported, was a shield for the human designers’ choice to ignore how race and poverty correlate with housing, and how that inequality is replicated in Amazon’s products.
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