The social network is increasingly relying on “deep learning,” where artificial intelligence develops the ability to read between the lines:
In the context of your Facebook day-to-day musings, the idea is the AI software would be used to better determine the meaning behind your ramblings. For instance, it could pick up on a note of sarcasm, such as “yes, all I need today is another fun piece of news about an impending birth/engagement/wedding” and thus put an end to the constant stream of age-related adverts for baby clothes, wedding bands and such like.
Facebook’s news feed currently runs on an algorithm that determines rankings and selections according to three things:
whether you’ve shown interest in a post from a specific member before, how the post has fared so far and how you’ve responded to posts of a similar nature in the past. Of course, if it isn’t able to pick up on nuances in language, in either your or your friends post, it’s impossible to correctly determine your authentic likes and dislikes.
Meghan Neal sounds a note of caution:
Technology Review reported that deep learning technology could figure out the emotions in status updates or events even if they aren’t explicitly shared, recognize objects in photos, and even predict how people will likely behave in the future. The implications of that level of knowledge and insight are many, and scary.
To some extent, it’s happening already, just with the traditional machine learning that Facebook currently uses to improve user experience and develop new features. The news recently broke that Facebook knows traits and details about you that you never told it—like if you’re gay, or a Democrat.
The Dish 