I've had a phobia of spiders since a very early age. I've done many things to try and get rid of it, and recently I've been looking at NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), relaxation and hypnotherapy videos on YouTube to try and overcome my fear.
I think it's been helping. I'm definitely more relaxed around some spiders, and I even managed to take one out of the flat recently.
But there is a problem. Every time I go into my YouTube account now, I'm greeted with pictures of big, ugly spiders. YouTube's algorithms have clearly interpreted my interest in "how to reduce your arachnaphobia (fear of spiders)" videos as "This woman wants to see spiders!"
Luckily I'm much more relaxed around pictures of spiders than I used to be (though you'll notice I haven't used any photos of real spiders in my video. I understand what it's like to be afraid of these creatures, and I don't want to give anyone a heart attack!).
But this is what I hate about algorithms - or more specifically, about the way they are used in social media. They are used to put people into simple categories designed to please advertisers. They take no account of our subtleties or complexities.
I understand that algorithms are necessary to build search engines, to help people find what they want. And I think the demands of advertisers often shape the way that algorithms are developed.
I hope that the freedom from advertising of the Steemit blockchain will help developers design algorithms that are a bit more clever than the ones on YouTube!
If you have any thoughts on this subject, I'd be interested to read them in the comments.
My video is at DLive