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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

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Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#151

Post by diego898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #127
saalweachter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cults do talk quite a bit about why they're not a cult.

But I haven't seen cults talking about how to personally ensure you're not falling into trap of cult-like thinking. LW is a rather self-conscious community.

Sorry for the tangent, but from the outside I've also felt very "outside" the LW community. I'm not exactly sure how to "join" it. I know that I'm supposed to read the various required readings first, but then what? How do I see what LW is "talking about" or "fighting about" at a point in time? I mean this in a serious, logistical sense. Thanks!

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#152

Post by quxbar »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #16

Besides the obvious, this gives me hope that the newly emerging generation of leaders might not be as painfully technologically illiterate as the current generation, and we might finally be able to see intelligent, educated decisions and laws about technology start to appear.

You're right, she's literally half a century ahead of her party leadership! It's amazing how long we've let our policymakers remain totally ignorant of the new systems that govern our lives.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#153

Post by macspoofing »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #57
mAEStro-paNDa wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's that?

“I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct, than about being morally right”

Interesting point, where were you when Ted Stevens was made fun of for analogizing the Internet to a 'series of tubes'. As an analogy of bandwidth restrictions 'series of tubes' is not too bad.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#154

Post by ceejayoz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #127
saalweachter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cults do talk quite a bit about why they're not a cult.

But I haven't seen cults talking about how to personally ensure you're not falling into trap of cult-like thinking. LW is a rather self-conscious community.

Some pretend to, though.

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

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#155

Post by dbt00 »

weberc2 wrote: post #7

Of course ML algorithms can be biased; rather than engaging an Internet layperson who tried to contradict AOC with a silly argument, it would be more interesting if the article engaged the more salient counterpoint to claims like these--attempts to eliminate bias can introduce bias as well. Anyway, the article is not written in good faith; it's only a step above "BOOM AOC owns Internet conservatives!". There's an int…

ML models are created and driven by human intervention. Humans are biased (in various directions). All models are biased in one way or another.

Now, you say this article should engage this counterpoint, but you haven't actually made a point. You've simply narrowly constructed "all models contain bias" to view only attempts to balance known bias with skepticism. You also fail to take a position on what we should do about this -- we're forced as readers to assume your conclusion is that counter-bias programming is bad and the status quo is good. That is wrong, but you don't actually say it so now that I've said it out loud you can complain that you're misunderstood or I'm making false assumptions about you, then continue to argue without ever stating your thesis about what should be done.

What's your belief? What's your suggested course of action? Take a stand for what you really believe.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#156

Post by ad_hominem »

tunesmith wrote: post #66
jpmcglone wrote: post #55

It just dawned on me that the left and right absolutely do not think of “racist” exactly the same. The left looks at outcome and the right looks at intent. We need better words.

Those words are "systemic" or "implicit" or "institutional", etc. All you really need is a proof or example that racist/sexist outcomes are possible even when there is no overt intent. And there are plenty of examples like that out there. Failure to accept that those examples exist, however, is something beyond just looking at intent instead of outcome.

I don't see how those adjectives add any clarity to the situation, since you can swap them out interchangeably and you're still describing the same vague, handwavy sense of racism somewhere being a cause for an unequal outcome.

Larry Elder had an interesting take on "systemic racism" IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phPXTWJhnYM

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#157

Post by tunesmith »

BeetleB wrote: post #111
jpmcglone wrote: post #55

It just dawned on me that the left and right absolutely do not think of “racist” exactly the same. The left looks at outcome and the right looks at intent. We need better words.

Haidt's book The Righteous Mind does touch on this - he'll likely have references to the studies in his book. What he says the studies show: Conservative ideology: Fairness is about guaranteeing everyone equal rights. If different people have different outcomes, the question is: Did one person have more rights than the other? If so, let's correct for it. If not, it is because the person did not fully utilize his/her…

If his studies basically equated liberal ideology with communism (equal outcomes), I think I'm a lot less inclined to read his book.

You know, what I'd really like is for parties or candidates to identify what they think the appropriate GINI coefficient should be for the US.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#158

Post by hannasanarion »

hoaw wrote: post #141
dgzl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could benefit from better language around these concepts I believe this is a very under-rated problem today's public is facing. Not just these concepts, but many political terms are misused in today's climate, making for a conversationally ignorant population.

I don't see how it is being misused. This sort of distinction is pretty basic e.g. philosophy. People simply disagree. More and more people not understanding the basics in favor of whatever they read on social media might be a problem though.

Political terms are misused all the time. For example, "liberals" are constantly conflated with "leftists". Half of the population currently believes that "fake news" means "news that doesn't confirm my political preconceptions".

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#159

Post by dragonwriter »

jpfed wrote: post #63
ceejayoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author flippantly violates this by claiming the credit system to be racist, but the Equal Credit Opportunity Act has been in force since 1974. Surely you're not arguing that the law instantly solved everything? Countrywide - once the lender for 20% of mortgages - was dinged for violating the ECOA in 2011, so violations were clearly still occurring then, and are likely continuing today. Add in the fact that redl…

I think a lot of people (especially on HN) view racism in terms of internal processes rather than results. If the current implementation is race-blind, that satisfies them. https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/8wz6g3/impartial_a...

Even on that narrow view, the fact that the law on its face requires systems to be race-blind doesn't mean that, in fact, they are.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#160

Post by matt4077 »

jpmcglone wrote: post #59

It’s more clear to me than ever now that the left and the right do not use the word “racist” the same way. The left thinks of racism in terms of outcome and the right thinks of racism in terms of intent. We could benefit from better language around these concepts, and honest dialogue about them too.

That’s not true.

It’s just that racist intend is almost always impossible to prove. Outcome therefore becomes a needed proxy, but only after excluding other factors, by, for example, normalizing for age and income.

Two landmark studies in this regard come to mind are (a) how the success rate at an orchestra doubled among women after auditions were changed to a “blind” format not allowing the decision-makers to see the applicants’ gender, and (b) how changing applicants’ names (and nothing else) could impact their chances to be invited to interviews.

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