The Elegant Variation: AMAZONIAN ASSUMPTIONS

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April 15, 2009

AMAZONIAN ASSUMPTIONS

The Amazon Glitch-Snafu-Hack (depending on whom you read) has been much in the news the last few days, but this piece at the Washington Post - which speaks to the heart of the assumptions in Amazon's "algorithm" - is especially worth reading.

The issue with #AmazonFail isn't that a French Employee pressed the wrong button or could affect the system by changing "false" to "true" in filtering certain "adult" classified items, it's that Amazon's system has assumptions such as: sexual orientation is part of "adult". And "gay" is part of "adult." In other words, #AmazonFail is about the subconscious assumptions of people built into algorithms and classification that contain discriminatory ideas. When other employees use the system, whether they themselves agree with the underlying assumptions of the algorithms and classification system, or even realize the system has these point's of view built in, they can put those assumptions into force, as the Amazon France Employee apparently did according to Amazon.

Posted at 12:27 AM in Words Fail | Permalink

Comments

I highly recommend Deanna Zandt's take on the matter--it's spot on:

"More on #AmazonFAIL: Hackers, misogyny, homophobia and you"

Posted by: Anna Clark | April 15, 2009 at 10:35 AM

But if the problem was built into the algorithms themselves, why hasn't Amazon had this problem all the time, from the beginning? There has to be something more going on here than just homophobic algorithms.

Posted by: Niall | April 15, 2009 at 01:56 PM

Hi, Mark

Where can I get a copy of The Slap???

Posted by: Emerson | April 15, 2009 at 08:29 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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*Now in Paperback*

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The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

April 15, 2009

AMAZONIAN ASSUMPTIONS

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

April 15, 2009

AMAZONIAN ASSUMPTIONS

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism