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  4. Are Google’s linguistic prosthesis biased towards commercially more interesting expressions? A preliminary study on the linguistic effects of autocompletion algorithms.
 
conference paper

Are Google’s linguistic prosthesis biased towards commercially more interesting expressions? A preliminary study on the linguistic effects of autocompletion algorithms.

Jobin, Anna  
•
Kaplan, Frédéric  
2013
Conference Abstracts
Digital Humanities 2013

Google's linguistic prosthesis have become common mediators between our intended queries and their actual expressions. By correcting a mistyped word or extending a small string of letters into a statistically plausible continuation, Google offers a valuable service to users. However, Google might also be transforming a keyword with no or little value into a keyword for which bids are more likely. Since Google's word bidding algorithm accounts for most of the company's revenues, it is reasonable to ask whether linguistic prosthesis are biased towards commercially more interesting expressions. This study describes a method allowing for progressing in this understanding. Based on an optimal experiment design algorithm, we are reconstructing a model of Google's autocompletion and value assignment functions. We can then explore and question the various possible correlations between the two functions. This is a first step towards the larger goal of understanding how Google's linguistic economy impacts natural language.

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Type
conference paper
Author(s)
Jobin, Anna  
Kaplan, Frédéric  
Date Issued

2013

Publisher

Center for Digital Research in the Humanities

Publisher place

Lincoln

Published in
Conference Abstracts
Start page

245

End page

248

Subjects

Google

•

web search

•

commodification of words

•

linguistic prosthesis

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
DHLAB  
Event nameEvent placeEvent date
Digital Humanities 2013

Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

July 15-19, 2013

Available on Infoscience
May 5, 2013
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/91957
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