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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

> My god, he thinks people like their feed algorithm.

So, besides this being hilariously out of touch, how come he (seemingly) believes this? Is this perhaps what he says to the public, while believing something else? Or surrounded himself with yes-people who won't actually tell him what they think? Or is he maybe just extrapolating this from usage data and assume because X hours of their day was spent on the feed, they like it?

It's just so hard to imagine how he got to that place, as I don't think I've ever heard anyone (online or offline) about how they like their feed order, it's always complaints about it and how they have to jump through hoops to get it into a chronological order, and hide all the spam/non-friends stuff.

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I've seen similar patterns of behaviour at corporations that are extremely metrics-driven (I don't call it "data-driven" that's bullshit).

Management put up the metrics they care about and think they are doing well when those reach some thresholds. They stop thinking about the qualitative side of anything over the time, and truly believe if the metrics are going where they want to it's because people love the experience overall.

It's very McNamara fallacy-y. Even more when you get sycophants around to push whatever your vision is, even to the detriment of the overall experience.

The quote does not suggest that he thinks people like the feed algorithm, just that it knows a lot about them. Extending that to thinking an AI that knows a lot about you will be a likeable companion isn’t quite so crazy in that context. (Though it is seeming to disregard that many people think society would be healthier if people went outside with their friends more and instead goes all-in on AI dystopia.)

It's really just a political statement, he's saying that you better get accustomed to being overworked that you'd only have time for parasocial relationships like these AI absurdities they're coming up with.

From the limited views we've had of Zuck, I think it's fair to conclude he's not really a people person.

I've noticed that rich and/or powerful people have a particular bias. They have a tendency to think their thought processes and preferences extend out to everyone, because they are successful and everyone wants to be successful.

I noticed this with RTO. I think a lot of executives genuinely, really thought it would improve our (ICs) jobs. Because think about what executives do. They sit around, talk to a bunch of people, make a bunch of decisions, and ultimately try to "sell" things. Well, that kind of stinks over zoom. So for them, it's true, RTO does make their job better. They can't really fathom, or maybe they just refuse to, what our job is. They don't sit there and walk a mile in our shoes.

For someone like Zuck, maybe this is how he would prefer his friends to be. That's kind of sad and pathetic, but what's even more sad is that he seems incapable of understanding other perspectives.

You guys can hide all the spam/non-friends stuff???

I don't use Facebook since like a decade back, but lots of family, friends, acquaintances and neighbors do. What I've been teaching them is to block/report everything they come across that they don't like, and after a week or the experience seems to improve a bit for them.

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