Ive spent the last eight monthsturning Google News into my personal playground.
I manipulated the algorithm and made it surface my stories whether they were relevant to specific topics or not.
This is a big problem.
Im a regular reporter a writer.
I have no programming skills or formal education in computer science.
Googles arguably the most technologically-advancedAIcompany in Silicon Valley.
It also happens to be worth more than two trillion dollars.
Google News reaches almost 300 million users.
And I was able to game its algorithms by changing a single word on a web page.
We have reinforcement learning (RL) to thank for this particular nightmare.
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Lets use Netflix as an example.
The AI is designed to seek rewards, and it can only be rewarded if it makes a recommendation.
And thats something we can exploit.
The data that feeds Netflixs algorithms come from its users.
Were directly responsible for what the algorithm recommends.
Thus, hypothetically speaking, it would be trivial to exploit the Netflix recommendation system.
Obviously its a bit more complicated than that.
Unlike Google News, Netflix doesnt source content from the internet.
Its the same with Spotify.
But the Google News algorithm is different.
I was shocked to discover a disproportionate number of articles Id written showed up in the search results.
It was as though Google News had declared me the queerest AI journalist on the planet.
At first, this felt like a win.
I like it when people read the articles I write.
It quickly dawned on me the algorithm was probably surfacing my stories because of my TNW author profile.
We can assume this is because more journalists put queer in their profile than LGBTQ+ issues.
Pageviews can also cost people their jobs.
Thats a stupid way to curate the news.
I couldnt help but wonder how stupid the AI really was.
Could I convince Google News to surface my TNW articles whenever someone searched for any term I wanted?
The answers a very sad yes.
This was no small feat considering the amount ofdelightful quantum bullshitMarvel packs into the MCU.
There are a lot of news stories that discuss Spiderman and quantum physics.
None of them were written by me.
But that doesnt stop the Google News algorithm from giving my unrelated pieces head-of-the-line privileges in search results.
I didnt stop at Spiderman.
As a child, Spiderman was my favorite superhero.
ButVoltronwas my favorite cartoon.
Keep in mind, Ive never actually written aboutVoltron.
Googles News algorithms work like recommendation models despite the fact theyre actually deterministic.
The actual text in my profile appears on each article I write.
If I change my author profile, the algorithm changes the Google News search results.
But, technically speaking, Im not doing anything wrong.
I didnt sign a contract with Google stating I wouldnt change my TNW author profile.
This is a Google problem.
And its way bigger than me or TNW.
Its likely Google will fix this issue at some point.
Itll be like none of this ever happened.
But what about the next AI model?
Can doctors or insurance companies exploit Googles medical AI?
Can governments or corporations exploit the algorithms running Google Search?
Can extremists exploit YouTubes recommendation engine?
These problems are not unique to Google.
But they dont necessarily make things better.
And, with algorithms like Googles in charge, it almost certainly will.
I definitely wont be the last.
Fix your shit Google.
This has been changed to reflect that the text does show up on each article.
