The article talks about how the problem is users don't know how to change the inputs to effect the outputs but I don't think this is really desirable. Users shouldn't be thinking "If I hover my mouse over this for too long then it will stuff up my suggestions" that ends up with users altering their behaviour to suit the AI when the AI should just give you correct suggestions without the user having to understand how it works.
That's a great ideal, but the technology just isn't there.
With any system that tries to adapt to my preferences, I find myself thinking constantly about how my behaviour will influence it. I'm careful about what I upvote, I try to avoid pausing scrolling on uninteresting things, I even avoid reading articles which I don't want to see more of, even if I find the article itself interesting (remember that users are not necessarily logical - e.g. I don't wait clickbait even though I'm just as drawn as anyone else by the titles).
I would happily trade all of that mental load for a couple of buttons after each item "more like this" or "less like this" and a guarantee that nothing else affected the algorithm. No advance in the last ten years has changed my mind about that, and my hopes aren't high for the next ten doing so either.
I think there's a case to be made that even hard AI wouldn't be sufficient to solve the problem. When my bank manager suggests a product to me, I'm doing the same thing - wondering "why are you suggesting this to me, what's motivating this?". I still want inputs and reasoning exposed, not merely for the answer to be, on reflection, correct.
The article describes a major problem with AI/ML-based systems, but the examples they picked are poor.
With recommendations, users don't really care about controlling the results. If you know which movies should be recommended, you would just search for them directly.
The real problem arises in systems where the user does want to achieve some specific results:
* Home automation for lights, heating and cooling,
* Microwaves with clever programs that never do what you want,
* User interfaces that adapt to user behaviour,
* Self-driving cars for other drivers on the road,
