The Unintended Consequences of Machine Learning

These are heady times in machine learning and artificial intelligence; new algorithms, TensorFlow, and clusters of powerful GPU's are combining to produce powerful systems that can do things like beat the world's best Go player. But with great power comes great responsibility. Let me tell you a story about the unintended consequences of well-meaning machine learning research. I had been working on Amazon.com's You know, the recommender systems that sell you stuff you never knew existed based on your past interests and purchases, and generate a sizable percentage of Amazon's revenue.