Pareto optimal is definitely a core concept in game theory. It says that no other vector beats it in every dimension (or at least as good in all but one, and better in at least one).
I wish more business / product people understood this concept. When a product has been refined enough to approach Pareto optimality (at least on the dimensions the product is easily measured), it's all too common for people to chase improvements to one metric at a time, and when that runs out, switch to another metric. This results in going in circles (make metric A go up-up-up, forcing metric B down-down-down, then make B go up-up-up while forcing A to go down-down-down - it's worse than this because multiple dimensions go up/down together, making it harder to spot). Sometimes these cycles are over a period of quarters or years, making it even harder to spot because cycles are slower than employee attrition.
This is not independent of Goodhart's Law[1]. I've seen entire product orgs, on a very mature product (i.e., nearing the Pareto frontier for the metrics that are tracked), assign one metric per PM and tie PM comp to their individual metric improving. Then PMs wheel and deal away good features because "don't ship your thing that hurts my metric and I won't ship my thing that hurts yours" - and that's completely rational given the incentives. Of course the best wheelers-and-dealers get the money/promotions. So the games escalate ("you didn't deal last time, so it's going to cost you more this time"). Eventually negative politics explode and it's all just a reality TV show. Meanwhile engineers who don't have an inside view of what's going on are left wondering why PMs appear to be acting insane with ship/no-ship decisions.
If more people understood Pareto optimality and Goodhart's Law, even at a surface level, I think being "data driven" would be a much better thing.
[1] Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Cybernetics has devolved into KPI metrics with accelerationism as a treat.
Apparently documents from Google's antitrust case revealed the search algorithm was adjusted to give worse results in order to force the KPI for AdSense to drive quarterly earnings reports.
> “I care more about revenue that the average person but think we can all agree that for all of our teams trying to live in high cost areas another $[redacted] in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team.
> “I don’t want the message to be ‘we’re doing this thing because the Ads team needs revenue.’ That’s a very negative message.
> But my question to you is – based on above – what do we think is the best decision for Google overall?
> …Are there other ranking tweaks we can push out quickly?” - Dischler
Anil Sabharwal, the Chrome executive:
> “1…we were able to get launch approval to rollout two changes (entity suggest and tail suggest) that increase queries by [redacted]% and [redacted]% respectively.
> 2. We are going to immediately start experiments to improve search ranking in the omnibox (more search results and nudging search to the top).”
I think the most consumer friendly options would be a pay as you go model or a pay for tiers of use (e.g., $X for 500 queries, $XX for 1000 queries, etc.).
However they really are banking on the idea that people pay a bunch up front and use it fairly minimally. This allows them to make profit on the subscribers to pay for queries by free users. I have no idea where the pricing model will go in the future but it wouldn’t surprise me if pricing models become the primary method for fighting for market share as opposed to the AI’s actual ability.
I have really enjoyed AirportCEO on steam. I would check it out, might be exactly what you’re looking for. Another option would be to get the mods for MS Flight Simulator that allow you to create an airline and make money and grow your business, etc.
I tried Airport CEO but never really got into it. Too much focus on running the business and designing the interior of the terminal building, and not enough detail/control on designing runways, taxiways, hangars, lighting, and performing various airport ops. It's pretty nice if you're interested in a business sim though.
Give it a rest. What they really mean is a group of scientists who are known to publish together. They’re just using the word mafia inappropriately/jokingly.
It's an interesting thought experiment, but ultimately boils down to one point. YT gets to do whatever they want. The terms of service are designed so they can be selective in their enforcement.
Is it bad policy? Yes. Does it allow for flexibility in a world that is never black and white? Also yes. Honestly, if there was a better solution, what would it be? The questions are endless once you start down this rabbit hole.
No, in my view Youtube can not do whatever they like with this kind of thing, at least as far as my potential outrage is concerned. If Youtube gives a false reason (to me as well as others) about the reason for demonetising someone then I have a problem with that.
When some content is banned from Youtube, it's got positives and negatives. Like when Alex Jones was banned, I was annoyed that I could no longer watch Alex Jones on Youtube if I ever wanted to, but more than that glad that he'd never appear in my autoplay or recommended videos. While I think there is some truth that YouTube can do as it likes, people talking about what their rules are, complaining about them, lobbying Youtube even, is all fair too. A fair complaint would be that the user does not get enough control over what gets recommended. If enough people are talking about that issue, it could motivate Youtube or a competitor to provide that kind of control, as it would be a signal that it would attract an audience to that platform and keep them engaged if recommendation control was a major concern of theirs.
Also, in some circumstances I could be quite annoyed with Youtube for not demonetising or banning some content. It could be something I don't want to watch personally, or more likely something I feel disgusted by such as Elsagate type scandals where the 'protect the children' type argument or instinct in my opinion or feelings override free speech concerns.
People criticising what Youtube does and talking about what a video hosting website would ideally do helps to create the conceptual foundations for the ideal video hosting website, and which Youtube and anyone else who reads the comments can use.
Also, discussing how such a system works produces what would be considered 'prior art' when it comes to patents.
> People criticising what Youtube does and talking about what a video hosting website would ideally do helps to create the conceptual foundations for the ideal video hosting website.
The only problem is that your ideal video hosting website doesn't work. You won't:
a) Get enough users because most people want moderation.
b) Raise enough revenue because most advertisers want moderation.
c) Be able to legally operate because most legislators want moderation.
I never said that my ideal video hosting website would lack moderation.
Ideally I would have control (which I can delegate) over moderation rather than someone I disagreed with, and not have to spend much time or effort on moderation either.
Training and/or fine tuning my own moderation AI would be a useful feature.
After you get fired/retire/die someone else will take over your role. They will have their own ideals. Will they follow your ideals? Maybe. History says not likely.
Communism never succeeds past the first (maybe second) generation before corruption takes root. Same with obtusely vague terms of service and privacy policies. Google circa 2003, awesome. Google circa 2023, not so sure anymore
So what your saying is you want it so I can come to your house/business and talk shit and you have no recourse of kicking the person out, or severing a contract with them?
If you want to deal with Youtube, break them in a way that promotes competition instead of having the largest ad company also owning the largest video company. Trying to otherwise restrict their rights has many other bad outcomes for all businesses and individuals.
I dislike the pretense that bad things happening is somehow good. Or when someone does something that everyone else has done a million times before (like graduate with a higher degree or get into law school), it is somehow newsworthy. I think it makes sense to share highlights of your life with people who care about you, not your professional acquaintances. I want newsworthy and informative items, not feel-good memes or self-congratulatory posts. I also dislike the evangelists who pretend their X thing will save the world and cure all its ills. Yuck.
