Search and social media algorithms can produce strange results for their users — but fiddling with them can produce strange results from their users. In both cases the results may be too important to leave purely to machines.

That was the message from two conference sessions this weekend at South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive in Austin, as the largely youth-oriented technology conference moved into its second day under clearing skies.

“How to raise your IQ by eating gifted children,” suggests the auto-complete feature of a search engine. Another tagged a specific ethnic group of humans as gorillas. In yet another case, women were not shown high-end job openings. And, Facebook will say that you are getting a particular advertisement “because you are similar to our customers.”

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