Nowadays, there is much talk about algorithms.
After all, they are all around us, everywhere.
Google, Facebook, Spotify, Netflix recommend things to you every day.
I’m a programmer.
I learned to program very new
and learned to simulate and emulate human intelligence through software
for her to do tasks through it.
What I came to bring you here today is to deconstruct the concept of an algorithm,
show you what’s behind, how it’s built,
because, after all, if it somehow gives us content,
we need to understand what’s behind it.
But, to be able to explain to you the concept of algorithm
and explain how this works,
I need to take a step back
and remind you how we got information
until very recently.
We had a real wall between the top tier of companies,
governments and the whole society.
The information was always at the top of the pyramid,
and the rest of society received information via traditional media,
newspapers, magazines,
and obviously someone chose what was to become news.
Then came a revolution, which was the entrance of the internet in this story,
And what did she do?
It has, in fact, generated real social inclusion in relation to information.
Why social inclusion?
Because, since one of the main points of social inclusion is information,
What the internet did was flood the world:
everyone gets the information at the same time.
At the moment the information arrives at the highest echelon,
also reach anywhere in society.
If we look and we stop to think a little bit
and think how we have received information so far …
first through paper, there the media through TV, news programs,
until the internet went down in history …
When the internet came on, a small problem happened:
many data, that is, Big Data,
absurd volume, absurd speed of data,
in formats that we can not even observe.
After all, there are people who post a video that lasts six seconds and dies forever.
That alone has also brought us a second problem as a society.
After all, if I receive all the information
available all over the internet, what will happen? Chaos, right?
After all, we are very close to chaos,
since we no longer have how to make these filters.
And that’s when the algorithms came up.
The algorithms of all vendors, as I commented with you,
Google, Spotify, Netflix, came to help us.
They help you select a better song within an absurd amount of music.
How would we choose a song within Spotify?
A movie, a series, within Netflix,
where we could not manage and control?
Choose a movie today, choose a content.
So they came for that purpose,
but obviously we have to understand what lies behind it.
Behind this is a characterization.
The algorithms construct a characterization about us,
based on the data they have available.
So when this happens, imagine the following:
we are “clustered” …
Here is my profile, all open to you,
having the things that I like the most, that I least like,
the things that work the most for me and that least work.
All my features, related to my data,
are in here.
Except that gave us a new wall.
After all, I look like a group on the internet,
within the world in general.
I actually look like some people.
This is a real photo of my networks,
and this group does not relate to this group here,
nor with that.
This means that the information and groups are clustered.
Why does it happen? It’s simple.
The algorithm determines: from certain information,
I will choose, based on the characteristics and “clusters”,
what I’m going to show.
Who determines this is a man or a machine?
It’s a man,
because every rule must start from a human being.
So who programs to make it happen, or determines the rules,
is a human being,
and the machine performs with speed, precision
and obviously much better than a human being.
Well, this is real information.
about what happened in the US elections now.
Notice the amount of false news, and the true news in black,
and notice what happened.
Engagement on false news was much greater
than the engagement on true news.
This information only shows
that this here, yes, may have manipulated a result of election,
or actually transformed the result of an election.
“Cappra, let’s clear all filters then.
After all, all these filters are creating a distortion of reality. “
Come on: what is reality?
What is the reality of society?
You have always lived in communities, in groups,
they studied in schools that built your being.
When we were built as beings, there were already rules.
They were not as implicit as within the algorithm,
but they already existed.
So, to zero in, it’s very complex.
First, you have to understand, when you think about it,
which behind it has a lot of data
and that you need to know how to organize this information.
It is very difficult because turning a data into something that is useful,
in wisdom to thee, has a long way.
So we’re not normally prepared to do that.
Are there any shortcuts? No, there is no shortcut.
What I can say for sure
is that the world from now on will be much more analytical
and in an increasingly analytical world there will be two types of human beings:
one of them will learn how to configure what you want to receive,
will learn to say what he wants to see,
will learn to configure an algorithm to show the things he wants to see,
and the other does not.
What will happen to these two humans
is that the one who chose to configure
will see the things and information he wants to see.
The one who did not choose to configure
will see the things that someone chose him to see;
is the second path.
My question to you is: do you want to choose the information?
You are in the power of what you receive,
what you administer and what you have information?
It’s your choice.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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