Doesn't mean ads arent targeted. E.g. a 25 year old white programmer probably isn't getting Spanish language ads, or ads targeting new mothers, or ads for retirement communities.
You'd be surprised. I bought a travel sewing kit five years ago on Amazon, and ever since I'm getting advertisements and "recommendations" for handbags, makeup and high-heeled shoes. It's so blatantly sexist and wrong it's almost funny again.
Almost.
If this "blantantly sexist" ads were wrong no one would purchase such ads. Sure they may be stereotypical, but that's what targeted ads are all about, creating data driven stereotypes that later can be used for increasing sales and relativity.
Yes, the "blatantly sexist" bias may have happened due to unbiased empiricism. But the ads as still wrong. Id the GP was an exception, that would be an worthless anecdote, but anecdotes of ads being correct are hard to find.
Have you considered that it's blatantly sexist and right? I.e., that perhaps no-one programmed the ad network to associate sewing kits with handbags, makeup & high-heeled shoes, that perhaps the ad serving AIs learnt that on their own?
I wonder what we'll do when our AIs come to socially-unacceptable-but-true conclusions. Humans can be brow-beaten or persuaded into ignoring the truth systematically, but computers have to either have each bit of truth-denying programmed into them, or have much better intelligence and spend much more CPU calculating at a higher level in order to avoid socially-unacceptable truths.
I buy an average of a hundred items on Amazon a year, among them all my – male – clothes. Your algorithms are just plain shit when a single purchase five years ago is somehow weighed more than the whole rest.
If the algorithm makes money I don't see the problem.
I'd fire the department responsible for that waste of money.
Hmm, isn't "being sexist" the whole raison d'etre for recommendation algorithms? I mean, sexism or other form of chauvinism are basically estimation of individual traits based on group affiliation.
I have to do that surprisingly frequently, myself. I buy things buy as gifts, as one off experiments, or with no intention of using them for their intended purposes. ;)
Most ads-supported games have only ads of ad-supported games. That would be sane if it was a fast growing market with reasonable barriers to entry, but "free" games are not.