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Comment by cxr | Hacker News Reader

Let's stop with the abuse of the word "algorithm". Enough already. Even in a world where it wasn't the wrong word to reach for (i.e. a world that isn't the one we're in), even if it were proper, it is still by this point embarrassingly hackneyed. It's shameless, unrepentant pablum. And that's still ignoring that it's the wrong word to use in >90% of the instances where it seems to show up these days.

I have a pretty simple flowchart for lay people and tech journalists alike. It goes like this:

Are you about to use the word "algorithm" in an article or comment about social media?

No? -> GOOD.

Yes? -> Don't. (And to go one further, since you were already angling that way, maybe you should reconsider whether or not to scrap the whole piece entirely; do you actually have anything new and interesting to say on the topic?)

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What is the proper term for the mechanism that decides how to populate a social media feed other than a "recommendation algorithm"?

That phrase doesn't appear in the linked article, but to answer your question:

"Recommender system", e.g. <https://www.trulia.com/blog/tech/recommender-engine/>, <https://github.com/microsoft/RecAI>, etc.

Even if there were no consensus for an alternative, that wouldn't make "recommendation algorithm" acceptable, because it fails to meet the criteria to be an algorithm. The word means something.

cf "Imagine you're a mathematician, and fellow mathematicians start calling derivatives integrals instead[...] it's being used to describe systems that are almost the exact opposite"

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23672561>

"Algorithm" is a more accurate, more descriptive, better word than what succeeded it: "AI".

Without even touching how every other thing you said is wrong (esp. about it being accurate), how is "algorithm" more descriptive than "artificial intelligence"?

1. "AI" isn't intelligence.

2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/algorithm

>: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation

>broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end

> "AI" isn't intelligence

Right. AI is artificial intelligence. But that's irrelevant; you're answering a question I (explicitly) didn't ask, and not the question I did ask. How is "algorithm" a more descriptive term (your words) than "artificial intelligence"?

> 2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/algorithm

Do you have a point here? Whatever you think it is, you're not making it—you're making my case. Social media companies' "algorithms" aren't algorithms.

>AI is artificial intelligence.

AI is artificial intelligence, "AI" is artificial but it's not intelligence.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Stable Diffusion, LLAMA, et al. are not AI, they are "AI".

>Do you have a point here? ... Social media companies' "algorithms" aren't algorithms.

Social media run on servers, servers run software, software is quite literally "a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation" and "a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end"

Please come back when you at least have a basic understanding of how computers work.

Nice try, but no. Everything that runs on a server is not ipso facto an algorithm. It's a word that has a specific meaning, which you would (I'd hope, at least) be able to grasp if you weren't ignoring half the words in the definition you already quoted (and the specific meanings attached to those words, too).

> AI is artificial intelligence, "AI" is artificial but it's not intelligence.

And artificial tears aren't tears. Likewise with artificial vanilla, artificial plants, etc. Which is beside the point—because you have yet again attempted to provide a (crummy) response to the question I didn't ask and avoided answering the one I actually did ask.

Please come back when you can demonstrate that you can carry on a conversation without this type of rhetorically dishonest, empty, pigeon-shitting-on-the-chessboard condescending bluster. (And maybe take a course on the theory of computation and the fundamentals of computer science in the meantime.)

You proposed we stop using the word "algorithm", I argued to the contrary by pointing out it accurately describes what is usually portrayed by it.

> You proposed we stop using the word "algorithm", I argued to the contrary

K, thanks for the review. It was neither necessary, informative, nor otherwise a response to anything that I asked.

You can make as many bare assertions about being right about the accuracy question as you want. No amount of them is going to transmute these sorts of replies into one that can't be plainly identified as avoiding the question I did ask, but you can keep trying if you want.

You asked:

>Let's stop with the abuse of the word "algorithm".

I pointed out that it's not an abuse.

If that is not the question you asked, then sincerely: What the fuck did you ask?

> You asked:¶ >Let's stop with the abuse of the word "algorithm".

That's not a question. For someone with such strong feedback in a discussion about words and their meanings, you sure have a lot of difficulty actually working with them, huh?

* * *

In one double-barreled remark, you managed to pack in four claims—three explicit, and one implicit. The three explicit ones being that, in comparison to "artificial intelligence", "algorithm" is:

- "more accurate"

- "more descriptive"

- a "better"(?) word choice.

Ignoring the dumb false dichotomy that you pulled out of thin air and the ahistoricity of the other claim about "AI" succeeding "algorithm" when it comes to social media, I have repeatedly asked you to defend the second claim. You insist on doing anything but that—mainly by focusing on the first (and then reverting to posting low-effort, overconfident insults like, "Please come back when you at least have a basic understanding of how computers work").

> Without even touching how every other thing you said is wrong (esp. about it being accurate), how is "algorithm" more descriptive than "artificial intelligence"? <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40235433>

> you're answering a question I (explicitly) didn't ask, and not the question I did ask. How is "algorithm" a more descriptive term (your words) than "artificial intelligence"? <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242056>

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