Make Algorithms Accountable • Hacker News Board

Re: Make Algorithms Accountable

#31

Post by icebraining » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 7:42 AM UTC

my_first_acct wrote: post #27

yummyfajitas wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing a very important part of historic reality - pro-discrimination laws. Prior to the Civil Rights Act, we had a lot of local/state level economic regulation designed to prevent a race to the bottom (e.g. whites being forced to compete economically with colored folk) and to prevent greedy businessmen from acting against the public interest.

I don't doubt that such laws existed, though I know very little about them. I might surmise that the "public interest" upheld by these laws was based on a rather restrictive definition of "public". But I don't quite understand your point. My point was that if your goal is to end racial discrimination, free-market forces left to themselves are not sufficient. Sometimes legislation is needed to level the playing field…

I think the point is that we don't know if free-market forces are sufficient, because there wasn't a point in which they acted; there was always legislation pushing to one side or the other. Many of the Jim Crow[1] laws were only overturned after the Civil Rights Act, so the market went from mandatory discrimination to prohibition of discrimination without ever having a free phase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Re: Make Algorithms Accountable

#32

Post by jamessb » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

pducks32 wrote: post #21

Houshalter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology isn't special. Politicians are also uneducated on every other industry and area of life. It's just that when they misunderstand technology you notice.

Well I notice it about a couple areas but in a ton of those areas we have specific branches of the executive to deal with the nitty gritty but not really one for technology. Similar in UK where they have white wall ministries to deal with things that parliamentarians should not be expected to have a deep knowledge of.

Presumably you mean "Whitehall", rather than "white wall"?

Re: Make Algorithms Accountable

#33

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 10:40 AM UTC

my_first_acct wrote: post #27

yummyfajitas wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing a very important part of historic reality - pro-discrimination laws. Prior to the Civil Rights Act, we had a lot of local/state level economic regulation designed to prevent a race to the bottom (e.g. whites being forced to compete economically with colored folk) and to prevent greedy businessmen from acting against the public interest.

I don't doubt that such laws existed, though I know very little about them. I might surmise that the "public interest" upheld by these laws was based on a rather restrictive definition of "public". But I don't quite understand your point. My point was that if your goal is to end racial discrimination, free-market forces left to themselves are not sufficient. Sometimes legislation is needed to level the playing field…

My point was that if your goal is to end racial discrimination, free-market forces left to themselves are not sufficient.

Your point - or at least the argument you justify it with - doesn't really make any sense.

Lets consider a result of the same argument applied somewhere different:

"...a significant number of people were environmentalists, and strongly favor clean air. If you opened a factory that polluted or purchased supplies from one, your customers would disappear. If your bank made loans to polluters who wanted to finance new machinery, your depositors would take their business elsewhere."

Suddenly your mechanism for enforcing racism seems implausible, right? After all, if it worked, virtually every popular left wing economic regulation would be superfluous.