The Other Worlds Shrine

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  • we should have computer do top X lists

  • Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
 #167745  by Don
 Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:42 pm
ESPN's running another one of those 'top X best players all time in NBA', and predictably everyone thinks the list is wrong. I'm not going to say I can necessarily come up with a better list but it's pretty clear these things are driven by an agenda trying to get clicks. Well, I understand they need to stir up controversy to get things going, but if you're going to come up with a list that looks roughly like someone facerolling on a bunch of names, I think a better way is to have a computer do the list. By this I don't mean using some basketball power formula that is designed by a guy who generally tailored it so that Michael Jordan is always the best player ever (though Stephen Curry is threatening to come out ahead of Michael Jordan on those advanced stats now). What I mean is have a computer actually learn it like how there's report about a computer learned how to play NES games by actually playing the game. I don't even know how you'd try to get a computer to learn to rank basketball players or best song ever or hottest female or whatever but again I think a lot of these lists are supposed to be controversial, as in if you actually knew who are the top X of anything you wouldn't want to say that because the truth would be one of the least controversial results you can get. So having a computer learning how to rank stuff by whatever it thinks constitutes 'top X of Y' should generate plenty of controversy, and unlike the human counterpart it wouldn't be driven by agenda but will still be plenty controversial, so I can at least welcome our robotic overlords with their seemingly random top X lists. Seems like a win-win for everyone. Well, it'd suck for the guys who make a living generating these lists, but too bad for them.