[HN Gopher] Twitter will open source all code used to recommend ... ___________________________________________________________________ Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31 Author : dgrin91 Score : 89 points Date : 2023-03-18 21:18 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (nitter.bird.froth.zone) (TXT) w3m dump (nitter.bird.froth.zone) | t344344 wrote: | It would be great to have a commit history, bugzilla and content | of database. | danpalmer wrote: | I'm interested what the format of this will be (if it ever | happens). | | There's never just "an algorithm", there might be a model, there | might be a bunch of feature extraction code, there might be a | server that runs it all, but none of these would be that useful | in isolation, it's likely that all would be needed to be able to | get an accurate idea of the behaviour of the system. But, as Musk | says - no one really understands it all, so even then is that | really useful? | | What may be more useful is releasing a set of policies, or | product decisions about recommendations. Not necessarily code | that implements them, but the ideas and _values_ of the system | and the people building it. The code would likely only be an | approximation of that, but the policies /decisions are really the | part most people can or will engage with. | vishal0123 wrote: | Just because you can't run it doesn't mean it wouldn't be | useful. This likely will give insight on the kind of modelling, | experiments, goal function, deployment methods, resiliency etc. | And you could easily reverse engineer policy decision with | code(IMO), but other way is not possible. | laverya wrote: | I really hope this slips a day and releases April 1st instead. | totalhack wrote: | Translation: we can't figure out a good way to do this. Let's get | community feedback/help. | [deleted] | nonethewiser wrote: | This is something he said he'd do before buying Twitter. | [deleted] | muglug wrote: | This is such a weird thing to do. | | Are they going to take pull requests? Or will they just publish a | read-only code dump? | | Will they include Git history? If not, how will anyone hope to | understand the code that Twitter engineers themselves apparently | don't understand? | | Also are they publishing the spam detection algorithms? That's | implicitly part of the recommendation system, but I bet it's a | separate service. | operator-name wrote: | > People will discover many silly things , but we'll patch | issues as soon as they're found! | | Like maybe? I'm sure it'll get a lot of eyes, so I guess | they're hoping for some free labour? | eh9 wrote: | Bold of you to assume they've paid their GitHub bill | seydor wrote: | i m sure it's de rigueur to diss Musk, but this is smart for | business. Twitter's recommendations arent that great and i doubt | they re such a big driver of traffic (i use the chronological | mode and it s not much different). The EU will now have to eat | its paper, cause they are trying to pass laws about this, and the | EU has solely called Musk to testify in the parliament. If true, | this pulls the rug under a lot of very opinionated people | rvnx wrote: | Smart ? Isn't it a risk that Twitter (the company) gets | litigated because it has done illegal or unfair things in the | past ? | | If some politics discover that Twitter has influenced in one | way, they may be able to sue for example. | | Or if there were illegal discriminations. | | Also it makes it much easier for scammers to game the | algorithm. | | The smart move would be to do nothing, as nobody has ever asked | for Twitter's ranking algorithms. | seydor wrote: | I doubt they will release that stuff. probably just some core | sorting routines | | > as nobody has ever asked for Twitter's ranking algorithms. | | Actually many many people have. And this is good PR for his | marketing department | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | Well, that'll be interesting. I wonder if this will reveal how | Elon's tweets are given special weighting? | rvnx wrote: | pseudo-code: | | if following: rank += 10 | | else if elonmusk rank += 9999999 | | else rank = 1 | tonetheman wrote: | [dead] | Sebguer wrote: | Ah, yes, Elon promising a deadline for a release. Those always | hit on target. | | Even better that there's absolutely no indication of what this | will actually look like. | stametseater wrote: | At least he's not soliciting pre-orders this time. | misssocrates wrote: | Over optimistic estimates is how you know he's a real engineer. | themitigating wrote: | Or an idiot | LanceJones wrote: | It wouldn't be HN without the requisite 3- or 4-word digs | at Elon Musk. | themitigating wrote: | Because he's an idiot | BirAdam wrote: | Yeah. Almost all engineers I know (including myself) have a | tendency to be overly optimistic about how long something | will take. | archgoon wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | antiquark wrote: | [flagged] | Invictus0 wrote: | Elon also said he would resign as CEO | [deleted] | esperent wrote: | A renowned liar with a huge audience makes a claim and suddenly | we're seeing it presented as fact all over the place. Where have | I seen this before? | drexlspivey wrote: | [flagged] | nonethewiser wrote: | This is good news. Give credit where it's due. | jeromegv wrote: | You give credit when it's done. Not on announcements. | | He already promised it "next week" a while ago. | LanceJones wrote: | I still get a laugh from all those people who insisted Twitter | wouldn't last days... let alone months without having some major | outage. Wrong, all. | x86x87 wrote: | elon? Is that you? | | https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-down-thousands-us... | | https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/tech/twitter-website-down/ind... | jsheard wrote: | February 21: _Twitter will open source the algorithm next week_ | | https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1628122949185159168 | lapcat wrote: | It's like the Seinfeld episode where they're waiting 5-10 | minutes for a restaurant table. | | March 31 is suspiciously close to April 1. | wnevets wrote: | FSD Teslas will be out next year [1] | | [1] https://youtu.be/zhr6fHmCJ6k | rrix2 wrote: | SpaceX will put humans on Mars by 2024 [1] | | https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-humans-on-mars- | in-... | cidergal wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | KomoD wrote: | Link to the normal site instead of whatever that dog slow site | is: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1636835209587949570 | vorpalhex wrote: | Dang, can we get the url updated to point to this? | danpalmer wrote: | Looks like it's a Fediverse server that mirrors Twitter. | INTPenis wrote: | It's nitter, it's a privacy respecting frontend to twitter. | Has nothing to do with the fediverse. | | And I agree, linking it on HN is just a childish way of | showing you're not down with Twitter. Don't force your views | on others. | | I run my own nitter instance for a group of friends, the | secret is to never link it publicly because the traffic will | destroy it. | danpalmer wrote: | Ah that's a shame it's not actually integrated into the | fediverse, it would be nice to be able to reference Tweets | and Twitter users. | MiguelX413 wrote: | That's exactly what | https://github.com/NicolasConstant/BirdsiteLive is, their | purposes are distinct | jonas-w wrote: | Yeah, its just a slow instance. This [0] one seems to be | faster. But yeah, they get "destroyed" easily, the same for | piped/invidious or libreddit. | | [0]: https://nitter.tiekoetter.com/elonmusk/status/16368352 | 095879... | MiguelX413 wrote: | Linking to the proprietary websites would be forcing | something on others, not linking to user-respecting | mirrors. | jonas21 wrote: | When INTPenis calls you childish, that's when you know | you're really being childish. | KomoD wrote: | Yeah and it's insanely slow, 37 seconds to load the web | manifest, 35 seconds to load the HTML document and ~20 | seconds per image | bradreaves2 wrote: | Do they know that March 31 is actually a real day? | NoZebra120vClip wrote: | Hush, April Ludgate might hear you! | [deleted] | wise_young_man wrote: | Tesla FSD is also coming any day now too. | layer8 wrote: | > Our "algorithm" is overly complex & not fully understood | internally. People will discover many silly things , but we'll | patch issues as soon as they're found! [...] Providing code | transparency will be incredibly embarrassing at first, but it | should lead to rapid improvement in recommendation quality. | | Sounds like Elon wants to crowdsource the analysis work. | WinstonSmith84 wrote: | After having fired many of the devs, and the remaining ones not | figuring out what all this is about, this looks like a | desperate (or smart?) move to fix things while not spending a | cent... | valevino wrote: | Why you say that the remaining developers are not able to | understand the algorithm? | layer8 wrote: | It's literally in the quote above: | | > Our "algorithm" is [...] not fully understood internally. | inglor_cz wrote: | The interesting question is: can it work? | | Unlike with the software itself, there was never a serious | attempt to open-source such algorithms in the big social | media space. Obscurity was the undisputed king. | | I would be glad if this attempt actually worked out. Sunlight | is said to be the best disinfectant. But there will be a lot | of bad actors trying to nudge the resulting algorithm | somewhere in a subtle way. I wonder if all of them can be | detected. | chitowneats wrote: | Sounds like a smart decision. A lot of people care about this | and would like input. So much so that they will work for free. | I fail to see why this is an issue from Musk's perspective or | from mine as a Twitter user. | bakugo wrote: | Love it when people post links to nitter/mastodon/etc instances | that can't handle the traffic from HN because their extreme | hatred of Elon Musk stops them from making rational decisions. | stametseater wrote: | nitter is simply a better browser interface than twitter | itself. It doesn't burn up my CPU doing god knows what or | interrupt my reading with popups asking me to create an | account. | sokoloff wrote: | It is plainly, demonstrably worse in this case. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-18 23:00 UTC)