4.8: Panagiotis Takis Metaxas

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Professor and Chair, Computer Science, Media Arts & Sciences, Wellesley College https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/metaxas

What do people need to know most about the impact of algorithms?

People need to understand that “algorithms” are not something new or unusual: It is any process that we follow to achieve a goal (from baking a pie to figuring out how to change a broken tail light on our car). While we casually refer to “algorithms” as the technology that has created the problem, it is really a specific type of algorithms we are worried about: machine learning algorithms that are solving a problem (their output) by looking at the ways that people have already solved it in the past (their input). However, as a famous motto in Computer Science goes, “garbage in? garbage out!” When we give as input to these algorithms data that are problematic, we should not expect that we will get back magically unproblematic solutions.

The problems propagated by these algorithms are mainly related to the way they are used in social media. It is not just a matter of protecting our privacy or keeping our thinking clear of propaganda. It is the fact that the social media companies that use these algorithms do not respect us as individuals. They do not even see us as customers — it is the advertisers that are their customers. They see us as the raw material used to study our behavior so that they can change it to benefit their customers.

Where and how can we effect change?

Education is still the major tool we have to protect ourselves, our cultures, our democracies. It is encouraging that some young adults are aware of the problems created by the algorithms and try to protect themselves, but the challenging issue is to educate the vast majority of our adults, young and old. And we need an education that is reaching people widely and fast. Semi-jokingly, I would say that we need an education that reaches people at the speed of religion.

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