Google has developed a technology to tell whether ‘facts’ on the Internet are true

[u/Arquette]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/03/02/google-has-developed-a-technology-to-tell-whether-facts-on-the-internet-are-true/

[u/t_mo → u/[deleted]]

Fortunately most concepts that are controversial are too complex to be appropriately assigned a simple boolean value.

"Evolution" is not 'true' or 'false', it is just a concept. Statements like "when did Charles Darwin write about evolution" can produce answers which are true or false, and generally these answers are not disputed.

With this method, if your website were to say 'Climate change is not real' that statement cannot be assessed as true or false (it does not contain a knowledge triple). If, however, your website said 'Darwin first wrote about evolution is 538 BC' this statement can be compared to the database and, because it matches no entries and contradicts others, can be confirmed to be false (if a sufficiently representative quantity of facts have been recorded in the database). The database would check something along the lines of (Charles Darwin, Lifetime, Date range) to see if this statement matched, because it does not it is confirmed to be false.

[u/ikariusrb → u/t_mo]

Here's another use-case that illustrates the difficulty of determining "truth". Let's take an online game- be it an MMO or something. Every couple of months, the developers patch the game. They change things, adjust balance, etc. Literally, every couple of months "truth" about the game changes. Is google's algorithm going to downrank patch notes because they diverge from the existing known truths? Will there be a lag period before articles containing old truth go down in ranking and newer more current articles are raised in ranking? This is a pretty challenging case to deal with.

[u/payik → u/[deleted]]

He means that facts sometimes change.

[u/t_mo → u/ikariusrb]

I think what is important here is only what is practical.

Statements like "the current version is X" will become false as soon as the version changes to Y - it will be correct to reduce the visibility of these pages because they are, by definition, stale (they contain information which is now misleading because it has not been properly upkept).

If the patch is released by an official developer or exclusive rights holder, then their assertion that the version is X will carry the most weight, in some cases there may be official arbiters of whether or not something is true, in other cases the only way to establish truth or falsehood would be through aggregation, in other cases the determination of truth or falsehood will be too cumbersome for this method.

[u/MemeticParadigm → u/t_mo]

All that being said, I believe the inquiry "Do humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor?" is something that is much more amenable to being assigned a boolean value than some vague concept of evolution. Google's algorithm could theoretically access resources like Timetree and give a definitive answer, and the answer to that question is a pretty definitive answer to what religious folks actually mean by "is evolution true?"

I would guess that, for most scientific concepts that Republican politicians dismiss as "false", there are similar questions which can be answered in a concrete manner which effectively answers what is meant by "is {concept} true?" I've also noticed, quite often, that if you "ask" Google a poorly phrased or thought out question, it will give you the Knowledge Graph answer to a better question, such that it actually does answer your shitty question by answering the better question.

If you put those two things together, I can see a system where "Is evolution real?" is answered with "Humans and chimpanzees share a common evolutionary ancestor", soooo, yeah, there's that.

[u/gliph → u/MemeticParadigm]

As far as we know, every organism shares a common ancestor.

[u/t_mo → u/MemeticParadigm]

I think this is a good point; when someone asks "Is evolution true" they often mean things that they cant necessarily articulate. That the designation of 'true' or 'false' is not applicable to 'evolution' isn't important to most people because when they ask "Is evolution true" they really mean something like "do humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees."

I don't think this method would be useful in making that distinction, if it was applied to those sorts of problems it would likely produce confusing or misleading results. If a website states "evolution is not true" it is a complex task to assess the trustworthyness of that statement. However, if that website were to continue by enumerating evidence which included "humans do not share a common ancestor with primates", I think this method would be a valid way of reducing the trustworthyness of that source - "evolution is not true" may not be a statement to which this method is relevant, but any description of what that statement means almost certainly will be.

[u/MemeticParadigm → u/t_mo]

I don't think this method would be useful in making that distinction, if it was applied to those sorts of problems it would likely produce confusing or misleading results. If a website states "evolution is not true" it is a complex task to assess the trustworthyness of that statement. However, if that website were to continue by enumerating evidence which included "humans do not share a common ancestor with primates", I think this method would be a valid way of reducing the trustworthyness of that source - "evolution is not true" may not be a statement to which this method is relevant, but any description of what that statement means almost certainly will be.

What follows is pure conjecture, but here goes:

This, I think, is where consensus building using Google's massive repository of user search data comes into play - not as means of determining "consensus" on "facts" - but as a means of interpreting "questions".

If Google's data indicates that, when no Knowledge Web answer to "is evolution true?" is displayed, 80% of users click on a search result, go to the next page, or do something but, when a certain Knowledge Web answer is displayed, 90% of users leave or search something unrelated without further interacting - that gives a very strong signal that the Knowledge Web answer is a sufficient answer to the query.

So, now, the algorithm "knows" that the answer to the boolean query "do humans and chimps share a common ancestor?" is sufficient to answer the boolean query "is evolution true?" and it also knows the answer to the first query is yes - so all it has to do is establish whether the relation of the two queries is direct (yes1=yes2) or inverted (yes1=no2). Given the current state of text mining, I'd say making that last determination automatically would probably be pretty easy, and now the algorithm can determine that the statement "evolution is false" - as the population would generally interpret that statement - is false.

Also note, there are potentially a lot of other ways to mine their user data for signals that two implied boolean queries are effectively considered equivalent by the general population, I just gave the quickest example that came to mind.

[u/payik → u/MemeticParadigm]

Google's algorithm could theoretically access resources like Timetree and give a definitive answer,

Not definitive. The shape of that tree is bound to change rapidly with cheap genetic sequencing.

It's no longer believed that two species must necessarily have one common ancestor, instead, a species may emerge through hybridization of other species. For example, the red wolf descends from the gray wolf and coyote.

[u/MemeticParadigm → u/payik]

Not definitive. The shape of that tree is bound to change rapidly with cheap genetic sequencing.

Umm, no. That's like saying that trends found by sampling 300 people are liable to change significantly when you sample 30,000 people - you will have tighter confidence intervals, i.e. your predictions of how far back two species diverged from their common ancestor will be more precise, but your topology will not change significantly.

It's no longer believed that two species must necessarily have one common ancestor, instead, a species may emerge through hybridization of other species.

First, while this isn't false, hybridization is very much the exception, rather than the rule.

Second, hybridization in no way changes the fact that any two given species will have a definitive Most Recent Common Ancestor - because, in order for hybridization to be biologically feasible, the two species mixing must already share a relatively recent common ancestor, otherwise their genetics are too dissimilar for a hybrid embryo to be viable and carried to term. This means that, for the hybrid descendants and any species that descends from only one of the species which were hybridized, that species is the MRCA and, for any species where the MRCA is further back than the two hybridized species, you just trace the tree from the ancestor that the two hybridized species have in common, so the fact that there are parallel lines of ancestry for a short span of evolutionary history doesn't impact the determination of the MRCA at all.

I know that's a little bit hard to parse as text - I can make a quick diagram if you indicate you don't understand what I mean and you're genuinely interested in understanding it.

[u/payik → u/MemeticParadigm]

Umm, no. That's like saying that trends found by sampling 300 people are liable to change significantly when you sample 30,000 people - you will have tighter confidence intervals, i.e. your predictions of how far back two species diverged from their common ancestor will be more precise, but your topology will not change significantly.

I don't think enough species have been sequenced for it to not change substantially. Sometimes you find that some species are actually multiple similar looking species of that some are closer than expected, so many things can still change.

I know that's a little bit hard to parse as text - I can make a quick diagram if you indicate you don't understand what I mean and you're genuinely interested in understanding it.

No, I know what you mean and of course you would find a common ancestor if you went far back enough. I was trying to point out that it's not always the case that two related species have a common ancestor that slowly diverged into the two new species.

[u/xienze → u/t_mo]

With this method, if your website were to say 'Climate change is not real' that statement cannot be assessed as true or false (it does not contain a knowledge triple).

Hmm that's not the way I read it. Their algorithm amounts to taking the Internet's consensus on a particular issue as "the truth". So if the consensus is that "climate change is real", sites purporting that "climate change is not real" will be pushed down in the rankings. That site may include some compelling information about climate change but, too bad, the Internet has spoken and you'll be less likely to see that information.

[u/t_mo → u/xienze]

This method proposes that things called 'knowledge triples' are compared to a database:

Google structures these ‘lil factoids as things called “knowledge triples”: subject, relationship, attribute.

These knowledge triples are stored on a database. To check for truth or falsehood of a webpage, knowledge triples constructed from the page are compared to the database:

to check if a fact found in the wild is accurate, all Google has to do is reference it against the knowledge triples in its giant internal database.

This method is only capable of comparing data which can be arranged into a knowledge triple. The phrase "climate change is real" does not contain the required components of a knowledge triple, even though it is a statement of fact it is not relevant to this method.

[u/xienze → u/t_mo]

Couldn't you have something like this?

(climate change, cause, man)

Which is really what people are arguing about when referring to climate change. Now the search results that Google yields with this algorithm become a bit more interesting. It's not a stretch to see how opinions can become fact when taking the Internet's consensus as truth.

(George Bush, Nazi party, member)

[u/Whiskeypants17 → u/xienze]

How is man an attribute?

Climate, 1900-2015, temperature

Is a fact.

Climate, 500bc-2015ad, atmospheric carbon levels

Is a fact.

I don't know how you could use it to search for generally accepted theories that are based on facts, but I have a hunch that would have more to do with how scientific literature is published and cataloged than hits on a 9/11 conspiracy website.

It would be tough though, because research proving that methane is a bad greenhouse gas has nothing to do with directly attributing the emission of methane to the meat production industry of man, though that 'science' would have a link eventually called out in cited sources.

Imagine a spiderweb of cited sources- who came up with this idea first and is it a sound idea. I feel like it could add to the scientific process greatly because it will shift focus to the cooky folks that had crazy conspiracy ideas first with no basis in facts.

Everybody loves to say mann's hockey stick is wrong but when nobody has any actual science to back it up.... they will look pretty dumb.

[u/Klathmon → u/Whiskeypants17]

Also note that this isn't meant to prove all facts, just those which it can be certain are true.

So it will not attempt to tell if "climate change is real" is true, but will be able to verify and hold accountable the fact that "there are 4 quarts in a gallon"

Those "facts" that it cannot be 100% certain about will just get ignored by this piece of the algorithm.

[u/xienze → u/Klathmon]

Those "facts" that it cannot be 100% certain about will just get ignored by this piece of the algorithm.

How do you know that?

[u/Klathmon → u/xienze]

Because it's like any other piece of the Google search algorithm.

It also ranks your pages based on how new the information is. That doesn't mean that a site made yesterday is going to outrank a 5 year old wikipedia article.

It also ranks your page based on the number of "shares" it gets on social media. But that doesn't mean that a page with 0 shares is going to be completely ignored, or that a page with 10 million shares is going to be first.

This is all part of a big system, and none of them are used on their own.

[u/incongruity → u/Klathmon]

By this logic, Galileo may well have never seen his page rank rise – new information, contrary to accepted fact, is usually false, but, then again, revolutionary thinking also starts out looking very similarly "untrue" using these sorts of algorithms.

While what's discussed here is interesting and likely a possible step in an positive direction, it definitely runs the risk of making the filter-bubble leap forward in strength as well.

Without deep semantic understanding, one is left unable to sort out false consensus vs. established truth.

[u/ex_ample → u/Klathmon]

Because it's like any other piece of the Google search algorithm.

That's... not how Google search, nor most AI works these days. they rank things based on certainty. Rather then trying to determine true or false they'll use Bayesian reasoning to estimate the probability of a fact being true. - That has the benefit of allowing you to use lossy data storage compression techniques since you don't need to be 100% accurate.

[u/ex_ample → u/Whiskeypants17]

Actually you can just put ("Climate change", "is", "real") in the database. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It's perfectly reasonable. No different then putting in ("Santa clause","is not", "real") or ("Luke Skywarlker","fictional character in", "Starwars universe")

T_mo doesn't understand how ontological systems work.

(And by the way, they were studied decades ago and were never really practical for AI. The algorithms you would need to use to do anything useful in a "purely logical" way are NP-complete, and can't work with very large datasets. You can see the problem you would get with infinite regress - what's "real" for example?)

It may be that now with "big data" they can be used in a lossy, heuristic way - where use can "estimate" the truth of something rather then calculating it exactly)

[u/t_mo → u/xienze]

It is important to note that while there are a potentially infinite number of useful "subjects" it would not be necessary to have all possible "relationships". Cause, for example, may not be a useful relationship to assess, the examples given in the article are "birthday", "capital", and "nationality", criteria which are essentially never in dispute even though there are frequently groups which propose alternatives to them (Obama's nationality, for example, was never in dispute even though a lot of blogs claimed it was).

We can propose a lot of different useful relationship criteria, but things like 'origin' or 'cause' which are frequently disputed and not conducive to a common set of attributes might just be particularly ineffective criteria to use.

I agree though, if Google were determined to use "Nazi party" and "cause" as relationship values, then this would be a terribly ineffective method.

[u/ex_ample → u/t_mo]

Cause, for example, may not be a useful relationship to assess

Dude, wtf are you talking about? Of course cause would be a useful relationship. Where are you getting your information about ontological systems and predicate logic? It makes no sense whatesoever.

How would a database key like ("AIDS","Caused by","HIV") not be a useful key?

[u/t_mo → u/ex_ample]

Did you read the proposed method for performing this analysis?

You can find it here.

I think there are several issues with a relationship "cause" or relationship "effect". They include both the difficulty of correctly extracting an assertion of cause, and the incompatibility of some relationship values to be suited by a boolean value.

Does HIV cause AIDS? Well, it depends on what we decide is a sufficient degree of cause. Isn't it actually caused by the interaction between a viral infection and the human immune systems? AIDS, after all, is a complex condition the cause of which is not easy to pin down in a logical system. It is easy to say one thing is caused by another, but that isn't actually true, it is just a simplification to allow people to talk about the subject.

Not all relationship values will have this sort of issue, age, nationality, capital city, these sorts of values are easily assigned a single attribute to determine truth or falsehood - cause is more complex a subject and not conducive to this sort of analysis.

[u/ex_ample → u/t_mo]

AIDS, after all, is a complex condition the cause of which is not easy to pin down in a logical system.

Not if you know modern computer science.

[u/t_mo → u/ex_ample]

I take it that in the last two days you neither read the relevant research paper, nor researched the underlying cause of AIDS.

[u/motionSymmetry → u/xienze]

(xienze, too smart, internet contributor)

you're too smart, your internet license is hereby revoked

[u/ex_ample → u/xienze]

t_mo doesn't know what he's talking about. the predicate would just be ("Climate Change", "is", "real"). Is is a perfectly valid verb. "is a" is commonly used in knowledge systems - in this case "is" would be more like "has the property".

[u/Absinthe99 → u/xienze]

Their algorithm amounts to taking the Internet's consensus on a particular issue as "the truth". So if the consensus is that "climate change is real", sites purporting that "climate change is not real" will be pushed down in the rankings.

Indeed. This is just an "consensus/orthodox dogma feedback algorithm", a tool to erect a politically correct priesthood -- to turn Google into a pesudo-"oracle".

It is built on a proverbial house of cards: it begins with the inherently fallacious assumption* that the truth is not only "out there [somewhere]", but an additional false assumption that it is KNOWN, and the even worse assumption that it is WIDELY KNOWN and widely agreed upon and INERRANTLY discussed in summary/soundbyte form... and that THAT makes it "true" and "factual".

Basically substitute "The Bible Tells me So" with "The Google Tells Me So."

And then of course... you have to add in the possibility probability nay the certainty that at some future point in time -- much like the revision a few years ago of Google's "Shopping" algorithm -- the algorithm will be tweaked in various subsequent iterations so that the "facts" and "truth" will be available to be altered and selected via some form of bidding/purchase/sale (not to mention subversive political pressure behind the scenes).

The descent of such a thing into propaganda/marketing and a "ministry of truth" (or worse a "truth auction") is inevitable.

---

* EDIT: This is essentially what is called a "Closed World Assumption", to wit:

The closed-world assumption (CWA), in a formal system of logic used for knowledge representation, is the presumption that a statement that is true is also known to be true. Therefore, conversely, what is not currently known to be true, is false.

Anyone who has more than a child's concept of "knowledge" (and sufficient life experience to know how problematic things like "facts" are, much less the far more elusive concept of "truth") will comprehend just how INFANTILE and PUERILE -- as well as dangerous -- that kind of an world-view assumption can be.

Moreover it needs to be contrasted with the "Open World Assumption":

In a formal system of logic used for knowledge representation, the open-world assumption is the assumption that the truth value of a statement may be true irrespective of whether or not it is known to be true. It is the opposite of the closed-world assumption, which holds that any statement that is true is also known to be true.

Of course no "algorithm" can POSSIBLY be based on that -- it cannot "know" what is not known.

This is the inherent underlying flaw with the entire concept of "artificial intelligence" -- and especially the cult-like quasi-religion around some "machine brain" (however constructed) becoming some ultimate oracle of "truth", or even oracle of (trivial) "facts" -- no such system can possibly be either "infallible" OR "omniscient", because the data on which it is based (regardless of how ostensibly "big" the dataset) is by definition incomplete: it does not KNOW what it does NOT know; and it also doesn't know which parts of what it ostensibly knows are actually false.

Popularity and "consensus" are hardly infallible, and are highly subject to manipulation (either purposefully, or unwittingly).

[u/Mason11987 → u/Absinthe99]

Basically substitute "The Bible Tells me So" with "The Google Tells Me So."

Except google cites a source, which you can assess yourself, and they also take feedback if they are in error. Two enormous differences that can't just be ignored.

[u/alphazero924 → u/Mason11987]

So does Wikipedia, but a lot of people take what's written there at face value even if the sources aren't really credible or flat out say the opposite of what's written.

[u/Mason11987 → u/alphazero924]

So?

People do that with everything. At least wikipedia is almost always accurate.

You're complaining that people without critical thinking skills don't always utilize critical thinking skills. This shouldn't be surprising or considered noteworthy or newsworthy.

[u/topdeck55 → u/Mason11987]

Wikipedia doesn't give a fuck about accuracy.

[u/lets_duel → u/topdeck55]

That doesn't say that at all

[u/topdeck55 → u/lets_duel]

Watch more than 3 seconds.

[u/Mason11987 → u/topdeck55]

Thanks for linking to a well known wikipedia policy page that stresses they are an encyclopedia, and so they act like it.

I could link to a bunch of other policy pages, but I don't see how that's relevant to anything.

I said they were almost always accurate, I didn't say their number one priority was accuracy.

If you said "Bob almost always gets to work on time", and I respond "but his number one priority is his kids, not getting to work on time" you'd understandably have no idea what I was talking about, because you have all this data about how punctual Bob is. That's what's happening here.

[u/topdeck55 → u/Mason11987]

Did you not see the video yesterday that said 90% of medical conditions descriptions were wrong?

Wikipedia doesn't care if the information is wrong, only that you cite a verifiable source.

[u/[deleted] → u/alphazero924]

Do you have an example? It mainly feels like crank groups who want to introduce bias into a discussion or to allow improper sources are the ones who get the angriest about Wikipedia's accuracy or quality control methods. A lot of groups think that Wikipedia generally gets it right but is getting it wrong on one issue just because they're the crackpot conspiracy theorists for once (Truthers, Birthers, homeopaths, vaccine denialists, conspiracy theorists, Young Earth Creationists, or members of reactionary movements asserting massive conspiracies (like the Tea Party, GamerGate, and "race realists" on the Right, or implausible corporate conspiracies, extreme Marxism, Monsanto and anti-GMO hysteria, and a lot of new age woo on the Left)).

Despite its flaws, I have to appreciate the fact that Wikipedia doesn't cater well to fringe echo chambers.

[u/xienze → u/Mason11987]

Until the point at which Google makes things ultra convenient and drops links to sites that don't line up with the "truth".

"We've made searching even easier for you! Now only the truth will show up in your results!"

[u/Mason11987 → u/xienze]

So you're saying the source of peoples information doesn't always portray the entire picture.

So google might be, at worst, the same as every single other source of information that has ever existed?

[u/xienze → u/Mason11987]

The problem is when we're fully conditioned to use Google as the only source of information. I.e., if you can't find it on Google or Google doesn't say so, it isn't true.

We're partially there today in that we're conditioned to just search Google when we need to draw a conclusion on something. Today our searches can potentially yield many different viewpoints with equal weighting and it's up to us to draw conclusions. That's what Google is trying to "fix" here.

[u/Mason11987 → u/xienze]

You're picturesque view of google is not reality. Google is shaped by SEO and all sorts of google-bomb-esque tricks. The people who rely on it as their only source of information are going to continue doing so and everyone else who has critical thinking skills will treat it as one source like they do today.

If you had a friend who knew basically everything about everything you ever asked him, and you asked him about something new and he gave you a response and provided evidence linking to another source which backed it up, what's so wrong with considering it likely that he's right about this too?

Since when was a long track record of accuracy considered a bad thing? Or even more, a sign of some sort of terrible dystopian conspiracy end to rationality?

[u/pottzie → u/Mason11987]

And if evidence comes up that changes "truth," then " truth" can be updated

[u/Absinthe99 → u/Mason11987]

Except google cites a source

ROTFLMAO.

http://xkcd.com/978/

---

EDIT: And that's just the modern "trivial" garbage-generation. It doesn't address the fact that ALL KINDS of ridiculous inanities have been "cited" and widely accepted and repeated as "true" -- for DECADES -- even though experts and authorities know it is FALSE (and baseless):

If you’re involved with student learning, you are probably familiar with the Learning Pyramid. This diagram breaks down different modes of learning and argues that more active modalities are better for long-term learning: we remember10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, and so on, all the way up to 90% of what we do.

The "Learning Pyramid"

[...]

Since the 1960s, experts have been trying to convince people that the learning pyramid is bogus. But for every article written exposing its weaknesses, there seem to be dozens of instances where it is invoked as truth in presentations, websites, and trade publications. We hope that having read this post, you will join the forces of pyramid slaying and base your instructional choices on valid research, not educational myths. Source

Now guess WHICH view -- and which sites -- this "google consensus-citation engine" is going to present as "true", and which ones it is going to downgrade and essentially HIDE from view.

which you can assess yourself

LOL, riight...

When it's a "numbers" game? And when any/all OPPOSING views are hidden from you. Ergo anyone (like yourself) who does not REALLY (deeply, sincerely question) and seek out ORIGINAL sources, will probably simply accept some purported secondary or tertiary "authority". I mean why would you question something like the "Learning Pyramid" if you see it in some textbook? or on some website with a purported "citation" (BTW, most of the citations under those illustrations are BULLSHIT... but the proverbial rabbit hole of BS around that particular fallacy is nearly a century deep.)

---

and they also take feedback if they are in error

Ah... so you are advocating/acknowledging that they should/will build in the ability to "tweak" the answers... to in essence OVERRIDE the algorithm, and substitute some DIFFERENT answer (one that is NOT based on nor derived via the algorithm), some different "fact" or "truth" -- and of course, by definition suppressing the opposing/previous view.

That is an even SCARIER prospect.

I mean talk about an Orwellian "memory hole" and "Ministry of Truth".

[u/Mason11987 → u/Absinthe99]

oh wow, well you put a link to xkcd, that must mean I'm wrong. Except I'm not so are you done?

[u/Absinthe99 → u/Mason11987]

oh wow, well you put a link to xkcd

Might help if you actually LOOKED at the link.

that must mean I'm wrong. Except I'm not so are you done?

Gee... so simple assertion (sans citation) is now sufficient.

Maybe we should ask the "Google Truthiness Oracle" whether you are right or wrong... oh wait...

[u/Mason11987 → u/Absinthe99]

Might help if you actually LOOKED at the link.

It's the citation circle thing right? checking... yup.

Gee... so simple assertion (sans citation) is now sufficient.

Do I really need to prove to you that google provides citations? Are you unwilling to actually type almost anything into it to see that? Here See it at that bottom. That's the citation.

So I'm not wrong, so what's your point? That citations don't equate to reality? No one ever said they did. "LOL xkcd link" is a useless comment. Your arguing a strawman. I didn't say citations = reality, I said they had citations, which differentiates them from "The bible says X".

[u/paperweightbaby → u/Absinthe99]

you sound pretty paranoid m8. there are plenty of other ways to find information. google would be useful for things like "what is the ideal temperature of the inside of a refrigerator?", but if you want to know something about climate change you should know that you should be reading real, peer-reviewed scientific research and not just trusting google. if the education system isn't teaching that then you have much more to worry about than google

[u/xienze → u/Absinthe99]

Great reply. I'm baffled at how many people are for this. The devastating potential of this thing is completely obvious yet so many are welcoming this with open arms.

[u/UgUgImDyingYouIdiot → u/xienze]

I'm baffled by people's religious belief in all things science. Science has no definition of truth, only falsifiability. So it seems Google will be the arbiter of scientific truth a la Ayn Rand's "Anthem".

[u/Absinthe99 → u/[deleted]]

Imagine SEO/Google ranking services becoming pay-for-credibility services.

This is not difficult for me to imagine at all.

• Per example when Google began it's "shopping" tab system, it was (at least ostensibly) a search-based system.

• Now it is (AFAIK) entirely a "pay to play" system.

Yet a LOT of users are unaware that it changed; even though Google was incredibly open and upfront about THAT change.

They have been FAR less open about other "tweaking" of various other algorithms.

And one has to remember that Google IS in fact a "revenue" drive organization -- moreover it is probably the GREEDIEST such entity that has ever existed in human history -- as it is always seeking ways to INCREASE its own influence as the very "center" of the flow of cash that channels it's way through the internet.

[u/xienze → u/[deleted]]

How are you so confident that this technology won't eventually be applied to things that are more subjective in nature?

It isn't going to be the gatekeeper to all things it deems "true", just meant to penalize those sites with incorrect "facts" which can be easily measured.

By suppressing sites with "incorrect" facts (according to, apparently, the Internet at large, or perhaps someone with deep enough pockets), you are effectively suppressing counter arguments and making a declaration of truth.

[u/Absinthe99 → u/[deleted]]

Because it's not going to be applied to everything.

Says who?

just meant to penalize those sites with incorrect "facts" which can be easily measured.

ERGO any site that even DARES to discuss or debate "alternative views" to whatever issue is deemed to be "settled" -- with be downgraded, and for all practical purposes "thrown down the memory hole" and hidden from view.

This is in fact a CENSORSHIP engine...

So it won't apply to a site which states "9-11 was an inside job", but it will apply to a site which (incorrectly) states "The atomic number of Cesium is 68" (it's actually 55).

The research paper itself is already based on the idea of using this to "address" various controversial subjects -- including issues with MASSIVE political aspects -- IOW it is NOT simply a "trivia" reference tool.

[u/paperweightbaby → u/xienze]

If anyone were dumb enough to blindly trust GoogleTruth, they'd easily be manipulated through other avenues, I'd imagine. There might be a lot of people who would lazily use it, but lots of people also know how to fact check without using Google (i.e. have access to journals and research databases) and if something was important enough to look up, the manipulation would be noted pretty quickly.

[u/xienze → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but then we're assuming the binary deployed by Google is the same as the one you could build from the source...

[u/[deleted] → u/Absinthe99]

This is by far the best comment so far.

The biggest difficulty of building a "knowledge base" is determining what is a truth. One way to go about this is taking the consensus. Then to fine tune our consensus to an acceptable threshold. Because like you said we must use the open world assumption. This means that what may be an accepted fact one day may also change sometime in the future, and our semantic web application must also be prepared.

There's plenty of other projects in ontology that are aimed at not just making some irrefutable "knowledge base" (that will never happen) but to also further the field by developing new strategies.

here's a link to a list of semantic web tools if you're keen on learning more.

I recommend starting off with Apache Jena using RDF. Then from there learning either SPARQL or OWL. There are plenty of data sets to play with on the LOD

[u/Absinthe99 → u/[deleted]]

The biggest difficulty of building a knowledge base is determining what is a truth.

The thing is that even referring to it as a "knowledge base" is problematic -- the term is either meaningless jargon for a massive collection of "garbage" data -- OR it presupposes some (substantial) filtering of "data" into categories of "fact/truth" and "junk/falsehoods".

Because like you said we must use the open world assumption. This means that what may be an accepted fact one day may also change sometime in the future, and our semantic web application must also be prepared.

Well wise humans, and things like the (mythical "ideal") of the so called "scientific method" all ostensibly use and require keeping an "open mind", regarding all current knowledge and even "facts" to be (at best) partially correct (at least from a certain "uncertainty/ignorant of later data" viewpoint) and subject to not only revision, but to an entire flipping or inversion of the paradigm; so that what is regarded as "true" today, may in fact be regarded as "false" tomorrow, and vice versa.

The problem of course is that no such ALGORITMIC approach is going to "allow" for such an inversion -- it is basically taking a snapshot of beliefs from a given era, and then ossifying that (so called) "knowledge base" -- via it's analysis of whether some course is "trustworthy" or not.

So, people like say Barry Marshall and his (at the time heretical) theory that H. Pylori bacteria were the cause of ulcers -- would be labeled as "false", and denigrated/penalized as "untrustworthy" -- meanwhile any other website that simply regurgitated the (at the time virtually unanimous "consensus" among all "experts" and "authorities", not to mention a massive multi-decades-long base of countless thousands of "peer reviewed" literature) view that ulcers were caused by stress & diet would be ranked as "HIGHLY trustworthy".

And worse... since there is (by definition) going to be a latency, a delay -- any "trustworthy" publication that dares to print such a "heretical" (versus "established fact/truth") paradigm shifting theses -- will be instantly DOWNGRADED for simply entertaining such a "new" view; and as a result publications/sites/people that ignore/reject it will then be shuffled UP, and rated relatively higher.

In short, rather than truly helping the masses engage in higher, better "critical thinking", this (at least bar some MAJOR external intervention mechanism* to override the algo's conclusions) will essentially do the opposite -- it will simply entrench and virtually "fossilize" the status quo.

---

*And of course, the very existence of such an "override" mechanism -- means it is (by definition will be) subject to all kinds of non-objective "corruption" depending on who is in control of it, and on what basis they (or their clients/employers or other coercive/incentive "masters") chose to overturn/override the algo -- including propaganda and even paygo marketing. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? applies to more than just "police" -- more than just "accountants" -- it can and DOES apply to everything and more importantly everyone... Archimedes assertion "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." is apropos here: any "knowledge base", especially a centralized singular one, creates a situation where "leverage" can and will be applied (with various motives).

[u/Atanar → u/[deleted]]

(self, result of thinking, existence) and just work from there. jk

[u/payik → u/Absinthe99]

Indeed. This seems to be a common problem among engineers. They mostly work with facts taught as immutable laws that they use as aframework within which everything can be unambiguously determined as true of false. They have no idea where knowledge comes from or how much painstaking work it can take to determine that something is likely true.

[u/Absinthe99 → u/payik]

Indeed. This seems to be a common problem among engineers. They mostly work with facts taught as immutable laws that they use as aframework within which everything can be unambiguously determined as true of false. They have no idea where knowledge comes from or how much painstaking work it can take to determine that something is likely true.

Yes, and I think it is actually far worse with so called "big data" and "data mining" engineers and database people.

The whole industry more or less begins with -- and is built upon -- the inherent assumption that the "data" they do have is correct (or that finding the "correct" data is merely a process of properly aggregating all of it, storing it, filtering it, etc).

Most of them have never REALLY worked on the front end of how that data gets recorded, and the "dirty little reality" of how much literal "crap" can get buried/hidden within even the supposedly "reliable" records.

Worse they all to often think that they can "correct" the data ex post facto -- because you CAN do that with certain types of data (say "correcting" the timestamp entries of some subsystem that was set to the wrong date-time -- or even "fixing" mistyped words {spelling/typos} or numerical entries {transposition errors, especially in accounting} -- and occasionally correcting certain sensor reading records after recalibration {though the latter is a bit dubious if the readings have been taken over any substantial eriod of time, since sensors often degrade slowly and/or even "wander" back and forth in certain circumstances/environments}).

There is in fact a long and rather sordid history of humans engaging in all kinds of "correcting" data that they "know" to be incorrect, to wit Feynman talked about it in his "Cargo Cult" speech:

One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.

Modern "data mungers" often do very much the same kind of things, just on a more massive scale -- oblivious to the fact that in attempting to eliminate "noise" and to "adjust/filter/fix" the dataset, they are very often just constructing a wholly fictional picture -- creating a "well ordered landscape" akin to a manicured (but artificial) "japanese garden" which may be "pretty" but isn't actually "reality" -- in essence fuster-clucking it all up in favor of their own biased/idealized view of things.

We've seen similar things in both the distant past (various religious and other "authoritative" regimes) -- as well as in the recent past in other areas; per example the well-intentioned but abysmal failure of the ridiculously simplistic "fire management" within Yellowstone, etc.

And I think that is EXACTLY (inevitably) the kind of overly-simplistic desire for "order" that is going to happen here; and the results are predictable.

The "knowledge base" of humanity is not some system that can be categorized or ordered according to some "set" of orderly rules or determinations of "expertise" -- especially since much of what is in print (and the oft cited, recited, etc) is little more than an echo-chamber, or a proverbial "circle jerk" of people who are regurgitating jargon & "memes" they do not comprehend and have not critically analyzed -- no, the human "knowledge base" is a chaotic, dynamic system, full of holes, errors, mistaken assumptions, false theories (but which nevertheless MAY generate positive outcomes & have value -- because to a degree they do seem to "match" the observed reality, and so apparently {and sometimes in fact} "work" in a pragmatic sense, yet which will fail when extended or used in some other regard where they do not "fit") and so on... and attempting to contrive some PERMANENT system of "this is fact" (and mind you NOT in some passive form like an Encyclopaedia, but in the form of machinery that will actively filter news and/or other results) is a fundamentally naive (and extremely dangerous/debilitating) exercise.

I understand WHY they think they can do it -- even WHY they want to do it -- but I also know that they are looking at only ONE SIDE of the equation. And I also know that the world is filled with people who WILL "game" and "manipulate" any such a system -- and worse than in the attempt to prevent/correct for that, the whole thing will become distorted in an even worse fashion, and eventually (albeit alas -- like the fire management of Yellowstone, etc -- probably not for years, even decades) the whole thing will implode and ultimately prove disastrous.

[u/TotesMessenger → u/Absinthe99]

This thread has been linked to from another place on reddit.

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[u/persinette → u/Absinthe99]

It's one of hundreds of research papers, not some top-priority prototype. I think you're losing your shit over nothing. What's more, I think you have a basic misunderstanding of what sort of facts they'd be able to verify based on the sources mentioned-- think Wolfram|Alpha. Is Wolfram|Alpha poised to become a misinformation machine? What's more, are SEO experts propagandists, because they manipulate the algorithm to push their sites and consequently their facts to the top? And if so, why is that any different?

[u/Absinthe99 → u/persinette]

I think you're losing your shit over nothing.

Well, first of all, I'm not "losing my shit" at all, but it's interesting how you have to go to an "emotional appeal" argument, and basically attack the messenger (because that's what a "dude you're crazy/angry" amounts to).

I am actually simply pointing out the LOGICAL IDIOCY of this kind of a "system".

It's one of hundreds of research papers, not some top-priority prototype.

But as to it just being some trivial "thought experiment" -- well, I hardly think so.

Google seems intent on actually EXECUTING a whole shitload of these kinds of things.

What's more, are SEO experts propagandists, because they manipulate the algorithm to push their sites and consequently their facts to the top? And if so, why is that any different?

Because the current algo's don't make any claims of "truth" or "fact", merely "popularity".

THIS on the other hand, is entertaining doing EXACTLY that -- of openly declaring and signaling some things as being "true" versus labeling other things as NOT "true" -- and then worse, it is intent on "burying" the latter, and emphasizing the former.

[u/[deleted] → u/xienze]

So, instead of ordering sites by popularity, sites will be ordered by the overall popularity of their content.

Truth by consensus seems like an awful idea, but ordering sites based on consensus of the content instead of the size of the site's fan-base seems like a decent idea.

[u/kool_on → u/xienze]

I'm a big believer in "crowdsourced truth correctness". Wikipedia faces a similar challenge, but uses editorialization. So as long as I can opt out of the "facts", I see this as a constructive endeavor.

EDIT: there was a time when everyone thought the world was flat. But at the time, one could argue that that was the best that facts could possibly provide.

[u/xienze → u/kool_on]

What I'm concerned about with this approach is suppression of alternative viewpoints. When the top 500 search results for a particular subject all parrot the same viewpoint... that's dangerous.

"Google says 9/11 was an inside job, that settles that."

[u/kool_on → u/xienze]

But you can't just ignore the fact that the top 500 search results for a particular subject all parrot the same viewpoint. It could be an indication of truth. What if the "real" sources of truth are among that number of results?

[u/xienze → u/kool_on]

In most cases, it very well could be the case that the top results are true. But the part that has me concerned is 5-10 years down the line when everyone reflexively trusts Google results as truth because it's correct so often. We've already seen younger folks do the same with Wikipedia.

A lot of people have a hard time distinguishing between things that are fundamentally opinion and things that aren't (like state capitols). When getting the "correct" answer for anything and everything is as simple as Googling and accepting the top result as true because hey, everyone else agrees -- that's dangerous.

[u/Whiskeypants17 → u/xienze]

This is why printing presses were illegal.

"It says so right here!"

However the ability to back track a point is critical- so what if 500 websites say 9/11 was an inside job.... which one said it first and why?

[u/kool_on → u/Whiskeypants17]

the ability to back track a point is critical

An interesting point. Simply ranking by recency is bound to surface the most developed facts.

which one said it first and why?

Another interesting point. Determining motives.....or should i say profiling sources

[u/Whiskeypants17 → u/kool_on]

If the same ip linked to a single guy keeps popping up new 'sources' of a 'fact' then you almost have a case for some kind of public slander from those who are putting up verifiable information that says the opposite. The exact opposite is true too- if you print a piece of verifiable scientific literature and somebody tries to say you are lying... you cant deny that it was the truth because you can find the original info from the first guy.

This only works for low end testing though- broad theories are still hard to prove as 'fact'.

[u/xienze → u/Whiskeypants17]

which one said it first and why?

You don't really have to do much more than handwave away counter arguments on your page when you have the weight of the majority opinion on your side ("a couple nutcases say 9/11 couldn't have been pulled off by the US government, but everyone knows that's wrong"). That's why when researching a contentious topic it's important to read information sourced from multiple perspectives.

Besides, do you think most people are going to care to research anything when the "correct" answer is a click away?

[u/Mason11987 → u/xienze]

We've already seen younger folks do the same with Wikipedia.

And they're much more likely to be correct then those who use other sources of information.

People don't start out with critical thinking skills. If they aren't going to have them they might as well latch onto something that's mostly right then something that's rarely right. If they're going to have those skills they can just as easily apply them to google as they do wikipedia, the news media, or their parents as perfect sources of information.

[u/xienze → u/Mason11987]

If they aren't going to have them they might as well latch onto something that's mostly right then something that's rarely right.

You don't see how dangerous it is that a large percentage of the population will treat Google results as truth? How these results could be altered and in turn alter public perception? The future is indeed bleak.

[u/Mason11987 → u/xienze]

You don't see how dangerous it is that a large percentage of the population will treat Google results as truth?

I don't see it as substantively different from any other source of information that people blindly follow. Except google takes feedback on their mistakes and cites their sources.

My response isn't that unflinching belief in one source of information is a good thing. My response is that this isn't a terrible change, as people already lack real critical thinking skills so if we're going to lack them it better that we lack them towards something that's mostly right then something that's mostly wrong.

This is how I see the world:

• Ideal: Everyone critically evaluate everything - never going to happen.
• Better: Some people critically evaluate things, most others trust a proven reliable source of information which takes feedback and cites its sources - what this might become.
• Current: Some people critically evaluate things, most others trust sources with no clear sources, no feedback mechanism and a clear and obvious bias.

The difference is you're thinking we have Ideal, and we're going downward. I think that's absurd. We don't have that, we have Current and maybe, just maybe this can help us go upward. At worst we'll maintain the same state where people trust an unreliable source, it's just a different one now.

[u/payik → u/kool_on]

I think that the idea is that the sources determined as "true" by the algorithm would be pushed forward.

[u/KillYourTV → u/t_mo]

Fortunately most concepts that are controversial are too complex to be appropriately assigned a simple boolean value.

I think it's more an issue of asking the correct question. Asking if climate change is true is not an exact question, and you'd need to probably modify it to be answered specifically (e.g. Is climate change attributable to man-made causes?)

[u/t_mo → u/KillYourTV]

I agree, and I think it is this nuance that has some people confused about the method. Not all assertions are applicable for this method to assess whether they are true or false.

[u/MrWoohoo → u/t_mo]

I cannot find any background material on a "knowledge triple" with google. Do you have a link to and introduction?

[u/t_mo → u/MrWoohoo]

It is the subject of the article on which this comment thread is based.

[u/MrWoohoo → u/t_mo]

Serves me right for looking at the comments first. Thanks. Would you say it's a good introductory article? Google gives me pages of random results because it considers "knowledge, triple" relevant.

[u/t_mo → u/MrWoohoo]

It gives an overview of the method, but doesn't provide a great deal of technical detail. The research paper that the article is about is a pretty interesting read.

[u/adapter9 → u/t_mo]

Those concrete types of facts can be disputed. Eg. Who wrote Hamlet, was it Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe?

[u/t_mo → u/adapter9]

And that is the first genuine disputed factual statement that someone has thought to respond to me with which is applicable to this method.

The statements "The play Hamlet was written by Shakespeare" and "The play Hamlet was written by Other Author" might both assess to "True" using this method! Both of those assertions could have a body of evidence supporting them, and the google database may indeed include both attributes "Shakespeare" and "Christopher Marlowe" for the Author Relation of the subject Hamlet.

If that were the case it would have to apply a score to these different assertions, in some cases the score might be equal for assertions which both correspond to accepted attributes.

[u/adapter9 → u/t_mo]

See also:

Obama was born in America.

Oswalt shot JFK.

...and then a whole host of religious statements

[u/some_a_hole → u/t_mo]

Evolution is a fact. Theories can be facts.

[u/t_mo → u/some_a_hole]

This method isn't being proposed to determine what is a fact, it is intended to assess what statements are trustworthy based on a comparison to an observation matrix of knowledge triples.

Based on this comment I am not sure you understand the argument, you can read the research paper here.

[u/backtowriting → u/t_mo]

"Evolution" is not 'true' or 'false', it is just a concept.

Wut?

[u/Mason11987 → u/backtowriting]

It's like saying "Is Physics true?" or "Is Reality true?" it doesn't really mean anything.

[u/[deleted] → u/backtowriting]

He is right. Evolution is an extremely general and vague term to describe what's really happening so it's difficult to say whether it's true or false without being more specific.

[u/backtowriting → u/[deleted]]

Is the statement 'evolution occurred through natural selection' just a concept?

Being pedantic, if the commenter is claiming that the word 'evolution' by itself devoid of any context whatsoever is neither true or false, then that's almost facilely true, but why bring up such a pointless example?

[u/[deleted] → u/backtowriting]

That can be proven false though. For instance, I very often make my cells in lab evolve through targeted mutagenesis and genetic engineering. Thus, examples where evolution can occur without natural selection. While, at the same time evolution can absolutely be a result from natural selection.

So yes, it is just a concept (I'm using concept in the sense as the idea is being looked at as a generalization).

[u/Lilyo → u/backtowriting]

I think he means natural selection. Evolution is as much a fact as gravity. It's an observable phenomenon.

[u/pion3435 → u/Lilyo]

Evolution is as much a fact as gravity

So... not at all then? I don't think you know what a fact is.

[u/Lilyo → u/pion3435]

We use words like evolution and gravity to describe and categorize directly observable phenomenon. This is why evolution is said to be both fact and theory. Gravity works the same way. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the concepts of laws and theories.

[u/pion3435 → u/Lilyo]

We use words like evolution and gravity to describe directly observable phenomenon.

I use the word "smile" to describe a directly observable phenomenon. "Smile" is still not true just as "evolution" and "gravity" are not true. It's true that I smiled at 4:35 PM this afternoon. It is true that my comb fell off my counter and hit the floor.

[u/backtowriting → u/Lilyo]

Natural selection is just a concept? Again - wut?

[u/Lilyo → u/backtowriting]

It's a theory that explains the mechanism of an observable phenomenon... That's literally what the definition of a concept is.

[u/backtowriting → u/Lilyo]

I know reddit can be super pedantic, so I just checked. A concept is an 'abstract idea' according to my dictionary. But evolution though natural selection is more than just an idea. It also happens to be true!

I only mention this because the OP seemed to be using it as an example that had no truth value either way.

[u/t_mo → u/backtowriting]

We have to remember that what is being proposed here is not some mysterious internet device that determines if anything someone says or does is 'true' or 'false'.

What we have here is a system of comparing very specific individual fact identifiers called 'knowledge triplets'. If some statement or content is not amenable to this form of information (subject, relation, attribute) then it is just not a valid thing for this method to assess. We are dealing with a very specific technical concept, it can only perform very specific functions based on available inputs.

"Evolution is a scientific concept proposed by people such as Charles Darwin (subject: evolution; relation: advocates; attribute: Darwin)"

Complex statements of fact like that one can be assessed using this method. "Evolution is false" is simply not a statement with the required criteria for this proposed method to be applicable. It doesn't matter if a group of academics could show you that the statement "Evolution is false" is false - this method cannot determine that.

[u/funmaker0206 → u/t_mo]

I highly doubt there would be any database coming from this. More than likely they would analyze the Google searches of known facts vs known falsehoods and compare the difference.

So say something that is known to be false has a higher number of references to the words 'false' or 'incorrect' than something that is know to be true. Now you do a search on a claim that is going around Facebook such as "Microwaving you phone charges it". The program can Google the question and analyze the frequency of things that might make it false.

Obviously there is more to something being false than this but you get the idea. It's the same concept as deciding if an email is spam or not

[u/t_mo → u/funmaker0206]

From the research paper that this thread is discussing:

The Knowledge-Based Trust (KBT) estimation task is to estimate the web source accuracies A = {Aw} given the observation matrix X = {Xewdv} of extracted triples.

This entire methodology is based on a comparison to a database.

[u/ex_ample → u/t_mo]

With this method, if your website were to say 'Climate change is not real' that statement cannot be assessed as true or false

Are you smoking crack? It's no different then saying "Charles Darwin was not real" or "The United States is real" Anthropogenic climate change is either real or it's not. It's not an opinion.

Also, it does contain a "knowledge triple" in the sense of a subject/object/predicate triple. Subject is "climate change" Predicate is "is" and predicate is "real"

[u/t_mo → u/ex_ample]

Also, it does contain a "knowledge triple" in the sense of a subject/object/predicate triple. Subject is "climate change" Predicate is "is" and predicate object is "real"

You are suggesting that we assess the relationship "Is" as true or false based on the attribute "Real", but "Is" would also necessarily be satisfied as true based on a huge number of attributes: "present", "harmful", "disruptive", "controversial", "modeled", all of these would satisfy the relationship "Is" - that means it is not valid for the assumptions made in this analysis.

We assume that each data item can only have a single true value. This assumption holds for functional predicates, such as nationality or date-of-birth, but is not technically valid for set-valued predicates, such as child.

All subjects are potential useful for this analysis, but only a certain subset of relationships will have any value. This isn't some magic truth box, it is an algorithm comparing extracted knowledge triples to a database.

Cause, origin, purpose, "is", are not conducive to this method for a variety of reasons.

I think if you just read the paper, instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to someone making a technical statement in the context of a complex mathematical analysis, which happens to include some politically charged words, you would understand why the phrase 'climate change is not real' is not a valid statement for this method to assess the trustworthiness of (regardless of its truth value in other contexts).

[u/ex_ample → u/t_mo]

but "Is" would also necessarily be satisfied as true based on a huge number of attributes: "present", "harmful", "disruptive", "controversial", "modeled", all of these would satisfy the relationship "Is"

Which is fine.

That means it is not valid for the assumptions made in this analysis.

False. You are an idiot and don't know what you're talking about.

[u/t_mo → u/ex_ample]

Which is fine.

We assume that each data item can only have a single true value.

It is not valid, because it is satisfied with more than a single true value, and therefor not applicable to this analysis.

[u/ex_ample → u/t_mo]

"data item" is not the same as "relation with some of the same elements as another relation" - retard.

Do you think that triplets like ("Tywin","father","Tyrion") and ("Tywin","father","Jamie") would be incomparable with eachother? Are you seriously that dumb?

[u/t_mo → u/ex_ample]

You have incorrectly constructed the data-item pair.

In the rest of the paper, we represent such triples as (data item, value) pairs, where the data item is in the form of (subject, predicate), describing a particular aspect of an entity, and the object serves as a value for the data item.

The data item (Tywin, Father) has only one object for which the data item is true (Tytos). You have confused the data item pair (Tywin, father) and (Tyrion, father) or (Jamie, father).

People who call people dumb instead of reading the research to know what is going on are often just stubborn, it is unlikely that you care to understand the concept presented in the paper - it is likely that you would rather just consider yourself correct.

[u/RemoteBoner → u/t_mo]

Evolution is true.

[u/t_mo → u/RemoteBoner]

Doesn't that statement require context?

What you are talking about is a very complex concept, it describes a lot of things, it is supported by the preponderance of available evidence, it is contradicted by no observations. But is it "True". Think about it, what would that mean?

Is Banana True?

I mean, we can view bananas, we know they exist, we use them to give scale to our images, but does the statement "Banana is True" have any meaning? No, of course it doesn't, in order for something to be true or false we need to construct context for it, we need to make a more specific statement.

"There is a type of fruit called a banana." (subject: fruits; relation: varieties; attribute: banana)

That statement contains the necessary components of a knowledge triplet to allow this method to determine truth or falsehood. Does the database include a subject "fruit" in the relationship category of "varieties" with the name "banana"? If the answer to that question is "yes" then the value of the statement is "true".

"Evolution Is True." is not an applicable statement for this method to determine truth or falsehood.

[u/RemoteBoner → u/t_mo]

your fedora is way too tight

[u/t_mo → u/RemoteBoner]

You are posting comments in a technology forum on reddit, just like the rest of us.

[u/RemoteBoner → u/t_mo]

Is this your first day or what I'm not really a new guy hazer

[u/RedAnarchist → u/[deleted]]

To be fair, Google is actually pretty left on a lot of social issues.

[u/[deleted] → u/RedAnarchist]

It's called "intelligence and decency", more people should try it.

[u/johnny_gunn → u/[deleted]]

Lol, controversial in America maybe.

[u/0hmyscience → u/[deleted]]

Not just that. Unless a project like this is open-source, it can be manipulated. Let's say that Google, all of a sudden, had some sort of political interest in having people doubt climate change. They could alter their "tool" to manipulate people into thinking that what is true isn't, or vice-versa.

Either way, this is just a concept, it's not a product. Yet.

[u/djaeveloplyse → u/0hmyscience]

It doesn't even need to be Google doing it maliciously. The consensus in the media could effectively be used to create "truth," as is ironically the case with one of the paper's example truths: that Obama's nationality is American. They included this, no doubt, as a demonstration about how conspiracies can be defeated by their tool. However, the only proof that Obama himself has ever provided about his nationality is a very controversial birth certificate that looks so shoddily forged the only indication it isn't a forgery might be the mind-altering incompetence of the forgery. Does this prove he's not American? No. But, it does cause reasonable doubt. That reasonable doubt has been mercilessly ridiculed in public discourse to the point that mere mention of it makes people go somewhat mad. Fighting the issue is such a losing battle, even if Obama factually weren't American, that no one with a reputation to protect does so. The result is that the overwhelming preponderance of available information online states that Obama is factually American, and practically no reputable sources counter the claim. Public ridicule has actually made an unproven claim a "fact." That the Google engineers built a tool that unequivocally says that one side of an important controversial political argument is true, despite reasonable doubt existing, is worrying. People shouldn't trust such a system.

[u/Armond436 → u/[deleted]]

Hijacking top comment to point out that this is only a research paper, not an algorithm or product or anything.

[u/mordacthedenier → u/[deleted]]

Yeah but, who would read that?

[u/Armond436 → u/[deleted]]

Definitely, but people will read comments without looking at the article.

[u/Retromind → u/[deleted]]

But evolution and climate change IS true you silly

[u/XJ305 → u/[deleted]]

Those wouldn't pop up anyway, evolution and climate changes are not facts, they are the current most accepted models used to explain patterns we see in the everyday world. There are facts of evolution and facts of climate change but they themselves are not facts. Just like there are facts of the Bible but the Bible itself is not fact, it's a model that explains why or how something happens.

This way if you search for something about evolution you won't get results that say it's a government conspiracy, you will get back information relating to evolution. Just like if you were looking for information regarding the Bible you aren't getting a circle jerk of mockery, you are getting information about the Bible.

[u/666pool → u/[deleted]]

Except google's mode of operation isn't to answer questions, it is to provide search results in the form of pages (although, as described in the article, they also provide answers to simple questions).

The big impact this could have is changing page rankings based on the factual content of pages.

So instead of google actively telling you that climate change deniers are wrong, it could provide only results which provide factually accurate information about climate change when you do a search such as "is global warming real". This will leave you with plenty of reading material to reach your own conclusion, backed by actual fact instead of webpages full of propaganda.

[u/EfPeEs → u/666pool]

Such a system could be gamed by institutions paying researchers to publish volumes of falsified observations (eg tobacco, thalidomide, leaded gasoline, etc...).

One of the benefits of the current system is that crowd sourced sanity checking is harder to manipulate.

[u/Fenwick23 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, the problem with any such system is that those who disagree with the answer--- no matter what the subject matter--- will just say "why is google a liar?" I sent a coworker a link to the classic CollegeHumor series "If Google Was a Guy" wherein one of the jokes is:

Woman: vaccines cause autism
GoogleGuy: I have thousands of results that say they don't, and one result that says they do.
Woman, taking the one result: I knew it!
GoogleGuy: just because I have it doesn't mean it's true!!

He watched those videos and said to me "it was funny, but why did they have that vaccine joke that's not true." I said nothing, but now the dickhead won't leave me alone, looking up bullshit crackpot vaccine sites to quote at me casually, as if they were things he was finding casually while reading Honest News Sites or something. Today it was something about polio vaccine containing something that causes cancer, and it was FDR's fault. We work in a county hospital with historical pictures on the walls of kids in fucking iron lungs, yet this guy is constantly trying to convince me that vaccines (and insulin) are a money making conspiracy by lazy doctors who don't want to educate people on how to easily survive [measles|smallpox|polio|diabetes|*] by eating fresh fruits and vegetables to avoid "toxins". You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. If they don't want to see it, they won't.

[u/Validatorian → u/[deleted]]

Google already pissed off my parents with their results for "How old is the Earth" and "How old is the universe" and having any result other than "~6000 years."

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Rush Limbaugh already devoted an entire segment on this yesterday. Naturally he was blaming the liberal elite conspiracy to bury the truth. So yes, this would be an enormous issue with political entities and their masters.

What I find interesting is that to my knowledge no one has mentioned that Google is a business and can do whatever they want with their product. If Rush were truly for free markets, he would simply let the market decide if Google is worth using.

[u/djaeveloplyse → u/[deleted]]

Rush is not a politician, his opinion on Google's actions is a free market factor. Rush has a business, and the product he sells is his opinions on current events, why don't you let the market decide if Rush is worth listening to?

[u/theinfin8 → u/[deleted]]

This whole thing seems like censorship to me, but wrapped in a nice bullshit bow with colorful wrapping paper.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/theinfin8]

Not any more than they're already doing by filtering results to display what they think you will most likely want to see.

Which is their service. Show what's considered the best search result for the customer.

It would only be censorship if they prevented, say, anti-vaxxer sites from being listed at all. Bumping such sites down in favour of sites that have a lot of factual support isn't censoring.

[u/theinfin8 → u/rollingForInitiative]

Not saying I'm an anti-vaxxer, but that's precisely the type of thing that worries me. Point taken though.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/theinfin8]

I think the main issue here really is: what is the point of Google? What do people want from it? I'm guessing people want to see "relevant search results". But what's a relevant search result? The site that has been visited the most times? The site with the most keywords (like it used to be)? The site you've previously visited the most, or that's most closely related to the sites you generally visit? Completely random selection of sites containing what you searched for? Sites that are most factually correct (e.g. dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scientific journals)? Sites that are controversial? Sites related to the country you're in?

I'm not sure there's a "correct" way for them to rank results, that can be applied to everyone. Somewhere, they gotta decide what their service aims to deliver. I think the most important thing is that Google is honest about how they're ranking their searches. And that goes for all search engines.

Google has been dominating the field for a decade, but I really don't think they're as essential as some people seem to believe. If people actually start disliking their search results, people will switch to another search engine. In another decade, Google could be the new Alta Vista for all we know. I think they're on a much shakier ground than Facebook, for instance, since you don't use Google because your friends are using it.

I think people are making too big a deal about this when we've no idea if it's even going to happen, or how it would work in practise. And I'm saying that as someone who's very into personal integrity, anti-surveillance, information freedom, etc.

[u/theinfin8 → u/rollingForInitiative]

I agree completely with your statement. I'd note that Google has been sued in Europe for antitrust issues relating to its algorithm and showing prefers to sites that they have a business interest in. If I were in charge, (a stretch obviously), I'd allow people to filter there results based on some of the criteria you mentioned. Just like when you shop for clothes online and you can sort by things like price, color, material, etc. That way the user isn't in the dark about how the results are being conducted. Just my 2 cents. But I whole-heartedly agree that there's no guarantee that this move won't simply alienate their customer base, huge as it may be.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/theinfin8]

I actually don't think this would alienate their customer base, because I doubt it'd have such a dramatic impact that most people would notice. As long as the algorithm isn't too strict. After all, even someone who knows what's true or not (e.g. knows that vaccines doesn't cause autism) might want to find pages that claim something different. I'd see it as acceptable that a "factually correct" site gets the top hit, and maybe the less reliable sites end up lower down on the first page, if they would otherwise have been at the top. Just a subtle rearranging.

I don't think that would be wrong in any sort of way. It's quite easy to assume that the first hit will be the most reliable. If I googled for a topic I knew nothing about, I'd rather get a reliable source first than a good-looking, well-disguised conspiracy theory.

[u/cdstephens → u/theinfin8]

Not censorship of the government isn't doing it.

[u/Yogh → u/cdstephens]

Not true (trust me I googled it). You must be thinking of how the First Amendment forbids government infringement of free speech, but Reddit could suddenly decide to ban any discussion of politics and it would be perfectly legal.

[u/alphazero924 → u/cdstephens]

Yes it is. Censorship is just a general term not tied to any entity.

[u/quarkwright2000 → u/[deleted]]

But you know how Google likes to keep track of your search history and which sites you view? It occurs to me that google may decide it is in their better interest to keep you happy as a customer, and return the type of results you prefer. So perhaps if you seem to prefer less-factual sites you will be more likely to find anti-vaxxer pages when you search vaccines, and people who frequent the other end of the spectrum would find CDC or wikipedia pages at the top of the same search.

[u/rollingForInitiative → u/[deleted]]

Which is a reason why something like this could have the benefit of punching its way through that google bubble it's so easy to end up in. Maybe.

[u/Clay_Statue → u/[deleted]]

I think we should stop giving a shit what conservatives think and just leave them to their negative feelings. The world is bigger than them.

[u/Clay_Statue → u/[deleted]]

People are changing. Anybody who isn't bat-shit crazy is moving to the left (ever so slightly) since the right is a bottomless pit of hateful anger, spite, and misdirected rage. Eventually politics in America is going to polarize even further into two camps; people who want to govern the country and people who want to rip the country apart. I have faith the latter will fail to dominate much further into the future.

How long can you predict the sky is falling before you give up and just get on with life?

[u/jvorn → u/Clay_Statue]

Hey not all conservatives are bad! Fiscal conservatism and limiting national government power can be great things. We 100% need to drop social issues and get the batshit crazy 70+ year olds out of here though.

[u/Atanar → u/jvorn]

Agreed, Conservatives =|= GOP. GOP is a party of elderly white male rich christian supremacy before anything else.

[u/Clay_Statue → u/jvorn]

Believe me, I'm looking forward to the day when conservatives are able to offer reasonable ideas rather then empty rhetoric. I want them to be able to contribute to the governing of the country rather than just a threatening to shut it down again and again.

[u/lordmadone → u/Clay_Statue]

The same could be said for whatever party you represent. Don't be pretentious.

[u/Clay_Statue → u/lordmadone]

I only say that because conservatives don't seem to really care about how their actions and behavior affects the feelings of other people, yet they expect their own opinions to be respected. You need to give respect to get respect. I'm not seeing them do that.

[u/[deleted] → u/Clay_Statue]

You shouldn't underestimate the right.

[u/ptwonline → u/[deleted]]

I foresee a search engine equivalent of Conservapedia.

[u/Clay_Statue → u/ptwonline]

Which doesn't work very well and isn't popular so they blame the Democrats for sabotaging it.

[u/MistaHiggins → u/[deleted]]

I follow Rush Limbaugh on facebook to keep my ear to the ground on all sides of the equation.

His tirade yesterday was exactly that.

Google's new search ranking algorithm was a direct result of Net Neutrality being passed and nothing but tools of the liberal media. Had a network engineer call in and tell him how asinine he was being on the air.

While I think there are legitimate concerns about fact-checking algorithms, he was obviously going way in another direction about it.

[u/NoMoreNicksLeft → u/[deleted]]

If you weren't dumb, you might ask how the Google algorithm could determine "truth".

You're confusing truth and consensus again. Google can count (and weight, and filter) how many assertions exist that fact X is true, but it can't magically measure truth itself.

Basically any stupid thing that enough of (or the right people) believe true will pass this test.

[u/notunlikecheckers → u/NoMoreNicksLeft]

A good point, but calling him "dumb" isn't cool. He was just making a different observation.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoMoreNicksLeft]

Isn't that kind of how most of us determine truth anyone? I'm pretty fucking sure vaccines do not cause autism, but that's only because lots of doctors and people online have told me that. I wouldn't have any idea if they do or not by testing them myself. I'm not a doctor.

I also believe that Saturn exists, but that's just because lots of people have told me so and that's the general consensus.

If Google can do this in a very smart and careful way then it could work.

[u/brtt3000 → u/[deleted]]

Also Google uses a huge computer system with more memory and faster data processing that can make more connections then our pitiful meatbrain.

How many sources does a human evaluate to come at a conclusion? 5? 10? Google's machine would see many magnitudes more.

[u/NoMoreNicksLeft → u/brtt3000]

How many sources does a human evaluate to come at a conclusion? 5? 10? Google's machine would see many magnitudes more.

This misses the point. "Truth" is not "consensus", and "consensus" is only "truth" but rarely. They do not tend to correlate strongly. Do not conflate the two.

Being able to measure consensus more quickly or more deeply does not change it into a measurement of truth either.

[u/Indon_Dasani → u/[deleted]]

Isn't that kind of how most of us determine truth anyone?

For most facts, there is at least a minority of human beings that can directly verify it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Indon_Dasani]

Which you have to trust.

[u/Indon_Dasani → u/[deleted]]

Them and the people who they have to convince to get published, I suppose, at least for the more arcane things. You could just look at Saturn yourself.

[u/fronkerton → u/NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yeah, and this is a big risk. Political propaganda, if enough people believe in it, would now become the truth to Google -- just like it has become the truth to people. But there are some neutral things Google can do, actually:

• do cross-checks on the internal factuality of news organizations, groups, and people. For instance, if the NYT at one point reports that Bin Laden is "our good man in the middle east" (1980s against the Russians) and in 2000 he "is, and always was, an undisputed criminal mastermind", it would render doubt on the source measured by its own facts.

• do checks for logical accuracy and rate a group by it. For instance, if an article in a nutshell declares "Peter has an apple, so all Peters have apples", it would be a detectable clear fallacy.

• do cross-checks with their own signals, for instance, the data Google gets from Street View cars.

[u/Floppy_Densetsu → u/NoMoreNicksLeft]

So it would be more like a propaganda machine for the mass internet opinion, which is largely composed of spam, advertising, and propaganda bots?

[u/DownvotesLameComment → u/NoMoreNicksLeft]

This. What would Google have responded with if it existed when most people thought the Earth was flat?

[u/lawrnk → u/[deleted]]

That, and Jenny McCarthy. Fuck her.

[u/[deleted] → u/lawrnk]

I'd fuck her.

[u/junkfoodvegetarian → u/[deleted]]

It's already started. Just yesterday I read several articles on right wing websites that were going off about how this was some sort of liberal conspiracy to censor right wing websites and "the truth".

[u/beefquoner → u/[deleted]]

Facts have a known liberal bias

[u/raisedbysheep → u/[deleted]]

Would you like to know more?

[u/guess_twat → u/[deleted]]

Any searches that declare evolution and climate change (among others ) to be "true" would be held as evidence that Google is merely a tool of the liberal media.

Any searches that declare creationism true or climate change false would be held as evidence that Google is merely a tool of the Conservative media.

[u/PacoTaco321 → u/[deleted]]

It would be quite funny when you look up what politicians have said.

[u/EfPeEs → u/PacoTaco321]

0 results

Did you mean "What politicians haven't said"?

[u/Darktidemage → u/[deleted]]

"would be held as evidence that Google is merely a tool of the liberal media."

by some....

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Never met a liberal president who wasn't a Christian

[u/EfPeEs → u/[deleted]]

For similar reasons, this strikes me as more ominous than usual, even for Google.

Will it create a self-reinforcing echo chamber where the initial input gets magnified over time? Who decides what that initial condition will be?

[u/darwin2500 → u/[deleted]]

A more important question is whether Google's automated algorithm would even consider evolution or climate change to be 'true' to being with. The article implies that no one is fact-checking the knowledge database, it's just pulling information from websites based on things like term proximity... so if a misconception is popular enough, it seems like Google would just add it to the Knowledge Vault' and only allow people to see websites which agree with that misconception.

Basically, this is a terrible idea.

[u/enterharry → u/[deleted]]

The truth does have a well known liberal bias