Tech recommendations can reveal more about us than we know ourselves - but how and why does this happen?
    • shinjiikarus@mylem.euEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      Has this story ever been confirmed by Target directly? As this happened in America and her father was outraged about it, it would have been awfully convenient, to “blame” the algorithm for “discovering”, she was pregnant. It takes quite a data analyst to figure out trends before someone even knows they are pregnant. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out a pattern for someone if they know they are pregnant and are just hiding it from their dad.

      • what_is_a_name@lemmy.world
        17·
        1 year ago

        Yes. It’s many years in my past, but this was confirmed. Target still does their targeting but now scatter unrelated items in the ads to hide what they know.

    • Madison_rogue@kbin.social
      113·
      1 year ago

      They didn’t figure anything out. There’s no sentience in the algorithm, only the creators of said algorithm. It only chose content based on input. So it all revolves around the choices of the article’s author.

      Same thing with the woman who was pregnant, the algorithm gave choices based on the user’s browsing history. It made the connection that the choice of product A was also chosen by pregnant mothers, therefore the shopper might be interested in product B which is something an expecting mother would buy.

      • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I believe in case of the pregnant women she was offered diapers and stuff. Based on food she bought. So it’s no simply “you both diet coke, maybe try diet chocolate?”. In case of Netflix there’s no " A show only gay people watch" so her complaints are silly.