Oh, also from that
article:
Paul Covington, a senior Google engineer who coauthored the 2016 recommendation engine research, presented the findings at a conference the following March. He was asked how the engineers decide what outcome to aim for with their algorithms. “It’s kind of a product decision,” Covington said at the conference, referring to a separate YouTube division. “Product tells us that we want to increase this metric, and then we go and increase it. So it’s not really left up to us.” Covington did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Engineers like this should be ashamed of themselves. You have a responsibility as a human being to not harm people. Spending most of your time building software does not absolve you from this.