Experts say data brings endless resources for tech giants. People believe that they can gain initiative surfing on the internet, clicking a link and giving a like, but that is not always the case.

When collecting information from users, tech firms can develop profiles of individuals and know what they like to listen to, what they want to watch, how they feel when reading types of news. This is used to suggest similar content they may want.

This is true of popular social network platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube as well. The suggested posts of the platforms are based on algorithms.

Dang Van Quan, an engineer in machine learning, said at a recent workshop that social networks are distributing content to people, at certain moments and audiences. The content reflects what users are most likely interested in and interact with.

Social networks also know what content needs to be suggested because they have personal information about demographics, gender, race, age, language and geographic location. 

Social networks use information about habits and behaviors of users to distribute content to them.

“The posts, likes, shares and comments of users on social networks are used as a type of data which helps the platforms distribute content to the right users,” Quan said.

As a co-founder of MLOpsVN, a forum about machine learning systems, Quan says that technologically, Facebook collects information from posting activities and established habits and hobbies, and after that, combines them to create an understanding about users.

From this knowledge, Facebook’s AI system learns and understands users in both the short and long term, and then distributes content based on their interests and habits.

According to Tran Huu Nhan, an engineer in data science and machine learning, in real life, every salesman is a ‘rice-run’ system suggesting information. In the IT era, platforms will use a kind of algorithm to replace the role.

While a salesman suggests the shopping through appearance (clothes and fashion style of customers), algorithms will use other information. They work through users’ activities on social networks. Platforms can base on this to learn more thoroughly about users.

“Who is the person who possesses and controls the data?” Nhan questioned. He believes that the dark side of AI and technology is not algorithms, but the benefits for the people behind it. 

Trong Dat