Can AI Change Your Mind or Opinion Without You Knowing?

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1 AI Affecting Your Decisions

1.1 Artificial Intelligence Navigation Services

1.2 AI in Subscription-based Streaming Services

1.3 Netflix AI

2 AI News Aggregation

Do you know how much influence or control Artificial Intelligence (AI) has on what you are reading on the internet or watching on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video? Can AI change your mind or opinion without you knowing?

AI has changed our opinions as it creates specific experiences for you. When you are on websites or television apps like Google, Netflix, or Amazon Prime, to name a few. AI adapts to you by reviewing your past behavior with your web searches, decisions, and other interactions.

If you want more information on how AI is changing your mind without you knowing, then please read on.

AI Affecting Your Decisions

AI is used by companies like Google, Netflix, and Amazon Prime to improve the efficiency of their platform systems by automating resource-intensive tasks. With AI, they now make user decisions based on pertinent information rather than intuition. Your opinion has been changed by AI many times without you ever knowing how or why.

Many of the capabilities of artificial intelligence are based on machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence we describe in our article “Can AI Help?”. Machine learning systems make accurate predictions from user data. Artificial intelligence is being used in several areas to gain insights into user behavior and provide data-driven recommendations.

AI Deep learning is an extension of machine learning that uses algorithms to understand human behavior and produce related results. Deep learning algorithms are being used to try to teach computers to learn things that humans do naturally. Deep learning algorithms emulate human brain simulations as one way to make machine learning algorithms more efficient and easy to use.

Artificial Intelligence Navigation Services

Companies like Uber, Google, Apple, and other navigation applications, use artificial intelligence to interpret data points they receive to provide their navigation systems and you with traffic data.

All this data is collected by Uber, Google, and Apple for artificial intelligence programs that use this information to make relevant and accurate predictions about you and your destinations. This information identifies your habits, like where and how fast you are going, what products you want to buy, what ads you see, and whatever else interests you.

These AI systems start with huge amounts of data, and machine learning algorithms are used to obtain information about this data. The data eventually feeds into more extensive procedures to get a complete picture of your behavior that can be used in the company’s larger ecosystems. This same type of AI information is collected by self-driving car companies like Tesla, Ford, and General Motors.

AI algorithm programming progress means that the software watching you, from automation, and analytics to social media, can become smarter with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

AI in Subscription-based Streaming Services

Companies such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, Spotify, and Hulu are subscription-based cost-tiered streaming services. These companies allow their members to watch TV shows, movies, and music with or without commercials depending on the price tier you select on the internet-connected devices you use, such as mobile on a smartphone or Wifi on your TV.

These companies all use AI algorithms in their business models and platforms. HBO is pushing more human interaction in conjunction with AI for HBO Max, Netflix has the Netflix algorithm, Hulu is a hybrid, and other platforms have their own strategies, according to an article titled “How Streaming Services Use Algorithms” by the Carnegie Mellon University, John C. Heinz College III Arts Management & Technology Laboratory.

“While HBO Max still contains machine-learning algorithms, it is rapidly highlighting “platform pockets” that contain human-curated effects. The positives are obvious: Personalized recommendations from Netflix and Spotify help us find exactly what we like among countless options.”
How Streaming Services Use Algorithms” by the Carnegie Mellon University, John C. Heinz College III Arts Management & Technology Laboratory.

Netflix AI

Netflix has always used groundbreaking tools to define the type of movies and shows that each of its users can personalize their experience.

Netflix uses artificial intelligence to select content for its users and bases the success or failure of its recommendations depending on whether users watch what their AI suggests. Netflix, with your documented approval use their system, to record the time, date, and type of device you are using.

Netflix AI utilizes as much information and past user data as it can collect about its users. Information like your choices, program search history, browsing data, rating data, and how long you watch a movie and, if you finish it, to predict what to recommend.

AI News Aggregation

As we discuss in our article “Is Google Personalized News Using AI To Create Bias?” we ask questions relevant to news aggregators like Google News and the Associated Press (AP). These companies are all collecting as much information about you as they can.

As also described in an article by RSS.com titled “How Do RSS Feeds Work?

“An aggregator is responsible for the convenience of RSS feeds. The RSS aggregator checks websites for new content automatically. It immediately pulls that content over to your feed reader, so you don’t have to go and check each website individually to find new content.
The aggregator even keeps track of what you have and have not read by listing the number of articles or pieces of content for each website you are following that have not been seen. This helps you quickly scan content from the websites that interest you.”
How Do RSS Feeds Work – RSS.com

How Do RSS Feeds Work?

Amazon AI

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. Amazon started an online marketplace for books but began selling many other products online throughout its history. Amazon has been utilizing AI in its business for many years to its analytical benefit.

Amazon has multiple subsidiaries, including Amazon Web Services, which has grown dramatically in the last few years. Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs, among other services, to individuals, companies, and governments.

Part of Amazon Web Services is AWS AI Services, which is their Artificial Intelligence services division.

AWS AI Services

The AWS AI Services artificial intelligence division has multiple resources that they provide for their clients and use themselves in their other companies or subsidiaries like Amazon e-commerce shopping and Amazon Prime Video.

Services that AWS AI Services offer are the following:

Computer vision
Automated data extraction and analysis
Language AI
Improved customer experience
Business metrics
Code and DevOps
Industrial AI
Healthcare

Whenever you are visiting an Amazon application online, they are analyzing your behavior in every way possible.

Amazon offers personalized product recommendations, with AI machine learning algorithms that match each user’s previous purchases to similar products. The AI then compiles these similar products into a recommendation list for each user. It doesn’t matter if it is toothpaste on Amazon Prime or a movie on Amazon Prime Video.

When you sign on to your Amazon account, you are given a myriad of choices, often from your previous browsing history. These choices can be filtered by different subjects like product type and customer reviews. When you click on any of these products, you will be taken to another page with additional personalized product recommendations.

Final Thoughts

The next time you are using YouTube, watching a video on Netflix, on your TV, computer, or smartphone app, remember that Artificial Intelligence is watching and learning about you in the background.

Even your Smart TV is collecting data about you so it can show you ads you may or may not want. We discuss this in our article “Can I Buy an Ad Blocker for My Smart TV?”

Whether using our smartphones, shopping online, spending time on social media, watching movies, or listening to songs on our favorite music streaming services, AI is affecting our lives one way or the other, and this is only the beginning.