“Age limits on social media are a dead end”

Public authorities should focus on regulating algorithms and imposing stricter controls on data collection instead, argues researcher.

Reinventing Discovery

How the internet and powerful online tools are democratizing and accelerating scientific discovery

The Facebook whistleblower says its algorithms are dangerous. Here’s why.

Frances Haugen’s testimony at the Senate hearing today raised serious questions about how Facebook’s algorithms work—and echoes many findings from our previous investigation.

The Crooked Timber of AI

The philosophical perils of conflating discoveries and inventions, and how to overcome them

AI Has Ruined the Job Market

Maybe flawed people were better than brute algorithms.

Search has its own bitter lesson

Human incentives to make content findable to your search matter more than technology

Task-Dependent Algorithm Aversion

Research suggests that consumers are averse to relying on algorithms to perform tasks that are typically done by humans, despite the fact that algorithms often perform better. The authors explore when and why this is true in a wide variety of domains. They find that algorithms are trusted and relied on less for tasks that seem subjective (vs. objective) in nature. However, they show that perceived task objectivity is malleable and that increasing a task’s perceived objectivity increases trust in and use of algorithms for that task. Consumers mistakenly believe that algorithms lack the abilities required to perform subjective tasks. Increasing algorithms’ perceived affective human-likeness is therefore effective at increasing the use of algorithms for subjective tasks. These findings are supported by the results of four online lab studies with over 1,400 participants and two online field studies with over 56,000 participants. The results provide insights into when and why consumers are likely to use algorithms and how marketers can increase their use when they outperform humans.

Task-Dependent Algorithm Aversion

Research suggests that consumers are averse to relying on algorithms to perform tasks that are typically done by humans, despite the fact that algorithms often perform better. The authors explore when and why this is true in a wide variety of domains. They find that algorithms are trusted and relied on less for tasks that seem subjective (vs. objective) in nature. However, they show that perceived task objectivity is malleable and that increasing a task’s perceived objectivity increases trust in and use of algorithms for that task. Consumers mistakenly believe that algorithms lack the abilities required to perform subjective tasks. Increasing algorithms’ perceived affective human-likeness is therefore effective at increasing the use of algorithms for subjective tasks. These findings are supported by the results of four online lab studies with over 1,400 participants and two online field studies with over 56,000 participants. The results provide insights into when and why consumers are likely to use algorithms and how marketers can increase their use when they outperform humans.

Why embracing complexity is the real challenge in software today

In the midst of industry discussions about productivity and automation, it’s all too easy to overlook the importance of properly reckoning with complexity.