Why AI Isn't Providing Better Product Recommendations

If you're interested in obscure things, there are two reasons why your searches for items and products are likely to be less related to your interests than those of your'mainstream' peers; either you're a monetization'edge case' whose interests will only be catered to if you're also in the upper categories of economic purchasing power (for example, products and services related to'wealth management'); or the search algorithms that you're using are leveraging collaborative filtering (CF), which favors the interests of the majority. Since collaborative filtering is cheaper and more established than other potentially more capable algorithms and frameworks, it's possible that both these cases apply. CF-based search results will prioritize items that are perceived to be popular among'people like you', as best the host framework can understand what kind of a consumer you are. If you're wary of providing data profiling information to the host system – for instance, not inclined to press the'Like' buttons in Netflix and other video content services – you're likely to be classified quite generically in your earliest interactions with the system, and the recommendations you receive will reflect the most popular trends. On a streaming platform, that could mean being recommended whatever shows and movies are currently'hot', such as reality TV and forensic murder documentaries, irrespective of your interest in these.