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Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

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Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#21

Post by scatters »

mseebach wrote: post #19
s_q_b wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a solid theoretical argument. However, it is contradicted by the empirical evidence. What usually happens is that the police issue fines so frequently that they become considered an occupying force by the populace. In turn, the populace withholds information from the police, and both violent crimes and petty violations rise. Police statistics make quantitative conclusions difficult, since they are so often fud…

In a world where we have police, we want to deploy it against crime. If the police isn't fit for purpose, that's a different kettle of fish. (Also, the next bit of the quote, "Yet neighborhoods more likely to commit white collar crime aren’t targeted in this way", suggests a very loose grasp of how policing works. No, they're not, because patrolling the street in front of an office building isn't the least bit effect…

> patrolling the street in front of an office building isn't the least bit effective against white collar crime.

Do you have any sources for this assertion? Have there been any studies?

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#22

Post by ar0 »

s_q_b wrote: post #15
Chris2048 wrote: post #9

> add more police to his neighborhood because of higher violent crime rates will necessarily be more likely to be targeted for any petty violation He'll also be less likely to be the victim of violent crime in an area with a proven record for violent crime. For the price of avoiding 'petty' crimes, it seems like a good trade-off.

That's a solid theoretical argument. However, it is contradicted by the empirical evidence. What usually happens is that the police issue fines so frequently that they become considered an occupying force by the populace. In turn, the populace withholds information from the police, and both violent crimes and petty violations rise. Police statistics make quantitative conclusions difficult, since they are so often fud…

I would suggest, however, that this is not an argument for less police but instead an argument for fewer laws that are only infrequently and inconsistently enforced. It is these laws that give police the opportunity to "issue fines so frequently" and to give affected populations (rightfully or not) the impression that they are singled out. (Laws against loitering or the consumption of alcohol in public come into mind, to a lesser degree probably also the criminalization of marijuana consumption.)

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#23

Post by holografix »

I found this article problematic. First the assertion that "big data comes with all the biases of its creators". Isn't this exactly what big data (which I believe is a term used here to reference some sort of predictive model or machine learning) is supposed to avoid - ie. Making decisions based on evidence and not bias?

Maybe it's the cynic in me but someone who worked in a hedge fund, started yet another advertising tech company and now releases a book about the evils of "big data" abusing the poor... guess I'm biased.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#24

Post by s_q_b »

nickflees wrote: post #18
s_q_b wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a solid theoretical argument. However, it is contradicted by the empirical evidence. What usually happens is that the police issue fines so frequently that they become considered an occupying force by the populace. In turn, the populace withholds information from the police, and both violent crimes and petty violations rise. Police statistics make quantitative conclusions difficult, since they are so often fud…

Interesting. Do you have a source?

Here's an example, and the study cited here has been replicated in many American cities.[0]

For the petty fines and eroded trust, this is from an advisory letter sent from the Justice Deparment to the judiciary of all fifty states:

“Individuals may confront escalating debt; face repeated, unnecessary incarceration for nonpayment despite posing no danger to the community; lose their jobs; and become trapped in cycles of poverty that can be nearly impossible to escape,” Gupta and Foster wrote. “Furthermore, in addition to being unlawful, to the extent that these practices are geared not toward addressing public safety, but rather toward raising revenue, they can cast doubt on the impartiality of the tribunal and erode trust between local governments and their constituents.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/nyregion/new-york-polic...

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#25

Post by edraferi »

holografix wrote: post #23

I found this article problematic. First the assertion that "big data comes with all the biases of its creators". Isn't this exactly what big data (which I believe is a term used here to reference some sort of predictive model or machine learning) is supposed to avoid - ie. Making decisions based on evidence and not bias? Maybe it's the cynic in me but someone who worked in a hedge fund, started yet another advertisin…

Humans still make decisions about what data to include, how to model it, how to interpret the results and what to do about it.

I firmly believe in the power of data to help people make better decisions, but decision making is always a human process, even if much of the work is delegated to a machine.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#26

Post by muraiki »

holografix wrote: post #23

I found this article problematic. First the assertion that "big data comes with all the biases of its creators". Isn't this exactly what big data (which I believe is a term used here to reference some sort of predictive model or machine learning) is supposed to avoid - ie. Making decisions based on evidence and not bias? Maybe it's the cynic in me but someone who worked in a hedge fund, started yet another advertisin…

Big data somehow being unbiased and impartial is a myth. The algorithms are still a product of humans. One notable example is a Google algorithm for labeling objects in photos that tagged black people as gorillas [1]. Now I don't have particular insight into the development process behind this algorithm, but this result may have occurred because the training data used did not include enough photos of black people.

Another example (from an old version of Picasa -- I'm not trying to pick on Google but I have firsthand experience of this) is when a friend of mine had photos of two different Asian people in his collection, but Picasa always recognized person B as being person A, presumably because it couldn't distinguish features unique to the faces of Asian people.

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/google-apologizes-for-algorithm-mis...

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#27

Post by marcosdumay »

scatters wrote: post #21
mseebach wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where we have police, we want to deploy it against crime. If the police isn't fit for purpose, that's a different kettle of fish. (Also, the next bit of the quote, "Yet neighborhoods more likely to commit white collar crime aren’t targeted in this way", suggests a very loose grasp of how policing works. No, they're not, because patrolling the street in front of an office building isn't the least bit effect…

> patrolling the street in front of an office building isn't the least bit effective against white collar crime. Do you have any sources for this assertion? Have there been any studies?

Do you have any counter anecdote to the assertion?

Because nobody will make a study to verify that the sky is blue if there isn't at a minimum some dissenting opinion.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#28

Post by sitkack »

If we train a mortgage engine on Redlining [0] data, it will then red line. Algorithms are not somehow "fair" because there isn't directly a human in the path. They are as "human as we are" but only proxy and at much lower fidelity.

Not to Godwin the thread ... but big data has been used for immoral purposes since well, big data [1].

The even larger danger, is that people who don't know better, will simply "train a model" and having no overt ill-will, will still create a biased algorithm.

[0] http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#29

Post by sitkack »

dade_ wrote: post #7

A wide array of concerns, but I stopped reading when the article explains that algorithms are going to keep people from being aware that poor people exist. If the only awareness someone has of poverty is from the Internet ads or any other content, then they really don't know anything about it at all. This sounds more like the people that protested computers in the 60's because they are used for war.

You should probably keep reading.
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