Feedback Loops, step by step
How the loop closes.
- Rank by predicted responseItems with a higher predicted click or watch are shown more.
- Exposure creates dataOnly shown items get feedback, so unshown items stay unproven.
- Retrain on that dataThe model learns from a sample its own choices produced.
- Behaviour adaptsCreators optimise for the signal, so the signal changes meaning.
- The metric decouplesThe number rises while the outcome it proxied does not.
Goodhart's law in a machine: once a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. Holdouts and off-policy tests are the usual corrective.
Questions about the Feedback Loops poster
- What’s on the Feedback Loops poster?
- 5 numbered steps. How the loop closes. Rank by predicted response — Items with a higher predicted click or watch are shown m…; Exposure creates data — Only shown items get feedback, so unshown items stay unproven.; Retrain on that data — The model learns from a sample its own choices produced.; Behaviour adapts — Creators optimise for the signal, so the signal changes meaning.; The metric decouples — The number rises while the outcome it proxied does not.. Goodhart's law in a machine: once a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. Holdouts and off-policy tests are the usual corrective.
- Who is the Feedback Loops poster for?
- Feedback Loops belongs to the Communications & Media section rather than to a school year, because humanities is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning digital & platforms can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Feedback Loops poster?
- When a metric keeps improving while the thing it stood for gets worse. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Feedback Loops belongs on the wall where that humanities work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Feedback Loops?
- How a Feed Ranks, The Attention Economy and Reading Analytics sit alongside Feedback Loops in the Communications & Media section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.How a Feed RanksThe Attention EconomyReading Analytics
- Is the Feedback Loops poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Feedback Loops downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Communications & Media section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Feedback Loops poster print at?
- Feedback Loops is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Feedback Loops loses nothing.Printing guide
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