It is the year 2016. Linkedin has recommended that I follow Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I don't know or care much about basketball. I think nothing of it.
It is the year 2018. Linkedin is still recommending Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I begin to suspect that it is assuming I like basketball because I am black.
It is the year 2024. Linkedin is recommending Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and several other basketball players. I am certain that it is being racist in the silliest possible way. I wonder if the engineer who made the suggested-follows algorithm knows that it is racist, or was warned that it might be.
Each passing year, the suggestion gets funnier. Much, much funnier. To think of how fundamentally incompetent Microsoft's management must be to let this happen.
Each passing year it gets more horrifying. I am forced to confront that someone is using this same technology to make decisions about resource allocation, about policing. The content slop has bled into reality. This post is supposed to be a joke but it isn't. I must make it one. Enjoy a too-zoomed-in picture of NBA player Chris Paul's mediocre headshot, courtesy of LinkedIn.
