To which the two biggest counter-arguments are:
1. “So don’t allow black box algorithms”
2. “This is why the search engine company should be separate from the company which owns all the other products”
> 2. “This is why the search engine company should be separate from the company which owns all the other products”
This doesn’t solve the problem. They can still alter top listings to push things for “preferred partners and truths”.
Anybody with Search experience confirm or deny this claim?
Pretty redundant if you ask me: black hat, SEO and crap.
/s
We here know that, politicians don’t seem to and they set the rules.
Regardless: the fear here is that Google itself is gaming its own algorithm — or just directly bypassing it because they can. I make no claim about the validity of this fear.
If society wants to make sure algorithms are fair, it may decide one option is to ban black boxes algorithms — if DNNs can’t be comprehended, that means no DNNs. Alternatively, if society says the only way to have a black box is to not compete in the domain the black box judges, then Google et al will have to change their business models.
The other problem with transparent algorithms is that they are trivial to game. Gaming is almost certainly worse than obscurity.
B. Hence the alternative of “don’t let the company which runs the algorithm benefit from the results of that algorithm”, which I’ve phrased differently in each post on this topic.
There are really clear conflicts of interests, even if you believe (as I happen to) that they are not exploiting their positions to the detriment of consumers: Google has products and services which people search for using Google’s own algorithm; Apple gets to write and enforce the rules of the App Store while having products in that store; Amazon sells both e-book readers and owns a e-book brand & platform, and would benefit from the Amazon.{com|co.uk|de|etc} stores listing the Kindle devices higher than they might otherwise be.
Again, I am not claiming they are actually engaging in anti-consumer behaviours (that would be outside of my expertise, and anecdotally I don’t feel like I’m being harmed by any of this), I’m saying it’s a conflict of interest and society is suspicious.