Test. Captioning performed by vitac thank you. Thank you, senator peters. Senator johnson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Harris, i agree with you when you say that our best line of defense as individuals are exposure. People need to understand that they are being manipulated and a lot of this hearing has been talking about the manipulation algorithms, Artificial Intelligence. I want to talk about the manipulation by human intervention, human bias. We dont allow or we certainly put restrictions through the fcc on an individual owning their ownership of tv stations, radio stations, newspapers because we dont want that monopoly of content in a community, much less, you know, facebook, google, access, billions of people, hundreds of millions of americans. So i have staff on instagram go to the political account by the way, i have a video of this so id like to enter that into the record. The hit follow and this is what the list they were given and this is in the exact order and i would ask the audience and witnesses to just see if there is a conservative in here how many there are. Here is the list. Elizabeth warren, kamala harris, New York Times, huffing ton post, bernie sanders, economist, nancy pelosi, the daily show, washington post, covering potus, nbc, wall street journal, pete buttigieg, time, new yorker, reuters, kirsten gillibrand, aclu, Hillary Clinton, real time with bill maher, un, guardian, huff post womens, late show with stephen colbert, moveon. Org. Usa today, new yorker, late night with seth meyers, the hill, cbs, justin trudeau. It goes on. These are five conservative staff members. If there are algorithms shuffling the content that they might actually want to or they would agree with you would expect you would see maybe fox news, breitbart, news max. You might even see like a really big name like donald trump and there wasnt. So my question is who is producing that list . Is that instagram . Is that a politico site . How is that being generated . I have a hard time feeling thats generated or being manipulated by an algorithm or by ai. I dont know any i would be curious to know what the click pattern was, in other words, you open up an Instagram Account and its blank and youre saying if you just ask who do i follow from an empty account who do i follow and youre given suggestions for you to follow. I honestly have no idea how instagram ranks those things but i would be curious to know what the original clicks were that produced that list. Can anybody else explain that . I mean, i dont believe thats ai trying to give content to conservative staff member of things they may want to read. This to me looks like instagram, if they are actually the ones producing that list, trying to push a political bias. Mr. Wolfram, you seem to want to weigh in. You know, the thing that will happen is if theres no other information it will tend to be just what where there is the most content or where the most people on the platform in general have clicked. So it may simply be a statement in that particular case that and im really speculating, but that the users of that platform tend to like those things and so if theres no other so, again, you would have to assume, then, that the vast majority of users of instagram are liberal progressives. There might be evidence of that. Ms. Stanphill, is that what your understanding would be . Thank you, senator. By the way, we can probably do that on google, too, it would be interesting. I cant speak for twitter. I can speak for googles stance just generally with respect to ai which is we build products for everyone. We have systems in place to ensure no bias is introduced. But we have i mean, you wont deny the fact that there are plenty of instances of content being pulled off of conservative websites and trying to repair the damage of that, correct . I mean, whats happening here . Thank you, senator. I wanted to quickly remind everyone that i am a User Experience director and i work on digital well being, which is a program to ensure that users have a balanced relationship with tech. Mr. Harris, whats happening on here . Again, i think conservatives have lake effect mat concern that content is being pushed from a liberal progressive standpoint to the vast majority of users of these social sites. I mean, i really wish i could comment, but i dont know much about where thats happening. Ms. Richardson . So there has been some research on this and it showed that when youre looking at engagement levels there is no partisan disparities, in fact, its equal, so i agree with dr. Wolfram in that what you may have saw is just what was trending, even in the list you mentioned Southern Poverty Law Center and they were simply trending because their executive director was fired so that may just be a result of the news, not necessarily the organization. But its also important to understand that research has also shown that when there is any type of disparity on partisan lines its usually dealing with the veracity of the underlying content and thats more of a content moderation issue rather than what youre shown. Okay. Anyway, id like to get that video entered into the record and we will keep looking at this. I think if you google yourself you will find most of the things that pop up right away will be from news organizations that tend to be to the left. I have had that experience as well and it seems like if that actually was based upon a neutral algorithm or some other form of Artificial Intelligence that since you are the user and since they know your habits and patterns you might see something instead of from the New York Times pop up from fox news or the wall street journal. That to me has always been hard to explain. Lets Work Together to try to get that explanation because its a valid concern. Senator tester. Thanks. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank all the folks who have testified here today. Ms. Stanphill, does youtube have access to personal data on a users Gmail Account . Thank you, senator. I am an expert in digital well being at google so, im sorry, i dont know that with depth and i dont want to get out of my depth. So i can take that back for folks to answer. Okay. So when it comes to Google Search history, you wouldnt know that, either . Im sorry, senator, im not an expert in search and i dont want to get out of my depth, but i can take it back. Okay. All right. Let me see if i can ask a question that you can answer. Do you know if youtube uses personal data in shaping recommendations . Thank you, senator. I can tell you that i know that youtube has done a lot of work to ensure that they are improving recommendations. I do not know about privacy and data because that is not necessarily core to digital well being. I focus on helping provide users with balanced technology usage. So in youtube that includes a time watch profile, it includes a reminder where if you want to set a time limit you will get a reminder. I got it. Ultimately we we give folks power to basically control their usage. I understand what youre saying. I think that what im concerned about is that if and it doesnt matter if youre talking google or facebook or twitter, whoever it is, has access to personal information which i believe they do, mr. Harris, do you think they do . I wish that i really knew the exact answer to your question. Does anybody know the answer to that question . I mean, the general premise is that with more personal access to information that google has they can provide better recommendations is usually the talking point. Thats correct. And the Business Model because theyre competing for who can predict better what will keep your attention my eyes on that website. Yeah, they would use as much information as they can and usually the way that they get around this is by giving you an option to opt out, but of course the default is usually to opt in. And thats, i think, whats leading to what youre talking about. Yes. So i am 62 years old, getting older every minute the longer this conversation goes on, but i will tell you that it never ceases to amaze me that my grandkids, the oldest one is about 15 or 16, down to about 8, when we are on the farm, is absolutely glued to this. Absolutely glued to it. To the point where if i want to get any work out of him i have to threaten him. Okay . Because they are riveted. So ms. Stanphill, do you guys when you are in your leadership meetings, do you actually talk about addictive nature of this . Because its as addictive as a cigarette or more. Do you talk about the addictive nature . Do you talk about what you can do to stop it . I will tell you that im probably going to be dead and gone and i will probably be thankful for it when all this shit comes to fruition because i think that this scares me to death. Senator johnson can talk about the conservative websites. You guys could literally sit down at your board meeting, i believe, and determine who is going to be the next president of the united states. I personally believe that you have that capacity. Now, i could be wrong and i hope im wrong. And so does it do any do any of the other folks that are here, i will go with ms. Robinson, do you see it the same way or am i overreacting to a situation that i dont know enough about . No, i think your concerns are real in that the Business Model that most of these companies are using and most of the Optimization Systems are built to keep us engaged, keep us engaged with provocative material that can skew in the direction that your concerns lead to. And i dont know your mystery, but do you think that the board of directors for any of these companies actually sit down and talk about impacts that im concerned about, or are they talking about how they continue to use what theyve been doing to maximize their profit margin . I dont think theyre talking about the risk youre concerned about and i dont even think thats happening in the Product Development level and thats in part because a lot of teams are siloed, so i doubt these conversations are happening in a holistic way to sort of address your concerns, which is thats good. I dont want to get into a fistfight on this panel. Ms. Stanphill, are the conversations you have since you couldnt answer the previous ones indicate that shes right, the conversations are siloed, is that correct . No, thats not correct, sir, senator. So why cant you answer my questions . I can answer the question with respect to how we think about digital well being at google. Its across company okr so its a goal we work on across the company. I have the novel duty of connecting those dots, but we are doing that and we have incentive to make sure that we make progress. Okay. I just want to thank you all for being here and hopefully you all leave friends because i know that theres certain senators including myself thats tried to pit you against one another. Thats not intentional. I think that this is this is really serious. I have exactly the opposite opinion that senator johnson has in that i think theres a lot of driving to the conservative side, so it shows you that when humans get involved in this were going to screw it up, but by the same token there needs to be Circuit Breakers that senator schatz talked about. Thank you very, very much. Thank you to the old geezer from montana. Senator rosen. Thank you all of you for being here today. I have so many questions as a former Software Developer and systems analyst. I see this really as i have three issues and one question. So the issue one really is going to be theres a combination happening of machine language, Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing all comes together that exponentially increases the capacity of predictive analytics. It froze on itself. This is what its meant to do. Issue two, the monetization of data broke ring of these analytics and the bias in all areas in regards to the monetization of this data. And then as you spoke earlier, where does the ultimate liability lie . With the scientists that craft the algorithm, with the computer that potent sheets the data and algorithm or the company or persons who monetize the end use of the data for whatever means. Right . So three big issues. Many more, but on its face. But my question today is on transparency. So many sectors we require transparency, we are used to it every day. Think about this for potential harm. So every day you go to the grocery store, the market, the Convenience Store and the Food Industry we have required nutrition labeling on every single item, it clearly discloses our nutrition content. We even have it on menus now, calorie count, oh, my, maybe i wont have that alfredo, right, you will go for the salad. We have accepted this, all of our companies have done this, its a state of there isnt any food that doesnt have a label. Maybe there is some food, but basically we have it. So to empower consumers, how do you think we could address some of this transparency that maybe at the end of the day we are all talking about in regards to this these algorithms, the data, what happens to it, how we deal with it, its overwhelming. I think with respect to things like nutrition labels, we have the advantage that we are using 150yearold science to say what the chemistry of what is contained in a food is. Things like computation and ai are a bit of a different kind of science and they have this feature that this phenomenon of computational reduce ability happens and its not possible to just give a quick summary of what the effect of this computation is going to be. But we know i know having written algorithms for myself i have kind of an expected outcome. I have a goal in there. You talk about no goals. There is a goal. Yeah. Whether you meet it or not, whether you exceed it or not, about whether you fail or not there is a goal when you write an algorithm to give somebody who is asking you for this data what they want the confusing thing is that the practice of Software Development has changed and its changed in Machine Learning and in ai. Thats correct. And so they can create their own goals, Machine Learning does its not quite its own goals, its rather that when you write an algorithm, you know, i expect, you know, when i started using computers a ridiculously long time ago also, you would write a Small Program and you would know what every line of code was supposed to do. With quantum computing you dont, but but you still should have some ability to control the outcome. Well, i think my feeling is that rather than saying i mean, yes, there are you can put constraints on the outcome. The request he is how do you describe those constraints . And you have to essentially have Something Like a program to describe those constraints. Lets say you want to say we want to have balanced treatment okay. So lets take it out of technology and just talk about transparency in a way we can all understand. Can we put it in english terms that were going to make your data well being, how you use it, do you sleep, dont you sleep, how many hours a day, think about your fit bit, who is it going to . We can bring it down to those english language parameters that people understand. I think some parts of it you could. I think the part that you cannot is when you say were going to make this give unbiased treatment of, you know, lets say political directions or something im not even talking unbiased and political directions. Theres going to be bias in age, in sex, in race, in ethnicity theres inherent bias in everything. So that given you can still have other conversations. I mean, my feeling is that rather than labeling rather than saying we will have a nutrition label like thing that says what this algorithm is doing, i think the better strategy is to say lets give some third party the ability to be the brand that finally decides what you see. Just like with different newspapers, you can decide to see your news through the wall street journal or through the New York Times or whatever else. Who is ultimately liable if people get hurt by the monetization of this data or the data brokering of some of it . Thats a good question. I mean, thats i think that it will help to break apart the underlying platform. Something like facebook you kind of have to use it, there is a network effect. You cant say lets break facebook into a thousand different facebooks and you can pick which one you want to use. Thats not an option. What you can do is say when there is a news feed being delivered is everybody seeing a news feed with the same set of values, with the same brand or not. I think the realistic thing is to say have separate providers for that final news feed. Thats a possible direction. There are a few other pocke possibilities. So your sort of label says this is the suchandsuch labeled news feed, people get a sense of is that the one i like, is that the one thats doing something reasonable . If its not they are just as a market matter reject it. Thats my thought. I think im way over my time. We could all have a Big Conversation here. I will submit more questions for the record. Into u. Thank you, senator rosen. My apologies to the senator from new mexico who i missed. You were up, actually, before senator from nevada, but senator udall is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you to the panel. Very, very important topic here. Mr. Harris, im particularly concerned about the radicalizing effect that algorithms can have on Young Children and its been mentioned here today on several questions. Id like to drill down a little deeper on that. Children can be inadvertently can inadvertently stumble on extremist material in a number of ways, by searching for terms they dont know are loaded with subtext, by clicking on shocking content designed to catch the eye, by getting unsolicited recommendations on content, designed to engage their attention and maximize their viewing time. Its a story told over and over by parents who dont understand how their children have suddenly become engaged with the altright and White Nationalist groups or other extremist organizations. Can you provide more detail how young people are uniquely impacted by these persuasive technologies and the consequences if we dont addre