How Algorithmic Confounding in Recommendation Systems Increases Homogeneity and Decreases Utility

Year of Conference
2018

Type

Conference Proceedings
Abstract

Recommendation systems are ubiquitous and impact many domains; they have the potential to influence product consumption, individuals' perceptions of the world, and life-altering decisions. These systems are often evaluated or trained with data from users already exposed to algorithmic recommendations; this creates a pernicious feedback loop. Using simulations, we demonstrate how using data confounded in this way homogenizes user behavior without increasing utility.

Conference Name
Twelfth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys ’18)
Publisher
ACM
Conference Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada.
URL