Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by SolaceQuantum » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

50656E6973 wrote: post #173

tomp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, “procedural fairness” or “equality of opportunity” (if I understand it correctly) is directly opposed to “representative fairness” or “equality of outcome”. In many situations, prioritising one will compromise the other. As an example, Harvard admission of Asian students. Perspectives differ on which one is more important. Personally, I’m absolutely for the former, but it increasingly seems I’m a p…

Equality of outcome seems like a mechanistic concept of the industrial age of standardized mass production. Equality of opportunity seems much more organic/humanistic because it allows for the natural variation in people's values and personality

I am also interested in equality of opportunity- but how do I measure that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve something? How do I measure the opportunity to consume nutritious food? The opportunity for access to the same healthcare?

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

#222

Post by faissaloo » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #70

faissaloo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But she's right. Alot of people will spend hours arguing over semantics that in the grand scheme of the debate don't actually affect the outcome, largely because people have become so uncharitable in their characterisations of 'the other side'.

The previous discussion prior to this quote was about how she was going to fund her estimated 40 trillion dollars of policy (over ten years), and how her purposed tax hike would only cover roughly two trillion. The facts really do matter in that case. She disagrees. TAPPER: “Your platform has called for various new programs including Medicare for all, housing as a federal right, federal jobs guaranteed, tuition free…

Of course she's wrong here since America needs a radical overhaul of its economy to accomplish these things and taxing income more isn't going to help with that. But the statement in isolation is correct.

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

#223

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #139

cmiles74 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that racism cannot be solely an issue of someone's intent, it needs to be evaluated by the outcome. An outcome is a fact that we can all observe. An intent is internal to a person, we can never get a clear view of a person's intent; at best we can make deductions as to a person's intent based on their behavior. Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an…

> Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an area where we can't clearly observe. It's a tactic. Claiming racism is anything but intent is changing the definition of racism. Which is: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior ." If you start changing the definition of…

I agree, but cmiles74 has a bit of a point, too. Everyone short of the KKK (and maybe even them) will claim that their intent is pure. Lacking a foolproof way to judge others' hearts, all we have to go on is actions and their effects.

As I said, I agree with you. But our position can lead to hiding some genuine racism under the "unintentional" disguise. It also leaves unintentional systematic biases unaddressed. While those may not exist as often as the left claims, they do at least sometimes exist, and do need to be addressed.

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

#224

Post by cirgue » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #39

chrisco255 wrote: post #29

Disparities in racial outcomes do not necessarily constitute racism. 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. We know the factors that affect credit, some of them are income, payment history, loan balances, number of credit checks, etc.

> 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…

> Add in the fact that redlining has multi-generational impact, too. Housing is one of the big ways families pass wealth down to their kids and you get potential racist impact due to past actions even if the current implementation is race-blind.

This is, by the numbers, the much bigger issue by an order of magnitude. I think one problem that many people have with the 'racist creditors' trope is that racist policies have left a gaping hole in african american wealth, and consequently african americans are disproportionately priced out out of their local housing markets. If you were to make the credit process completely (and I mean completely) race-blind, you would still have massively unequal outcomes, probably more or less on par with what we see today.

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

#225

Post by a1369209993 » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

yourbandsucks wrote: post #207

deogeo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely their high SAT scores and over-representation at Harvard compared to the general population are both caused by some heretofore unidentified analogue of white-privilege - what other explanation is there?

'Surely'? Why must it 'surely' fit into a preconceived ideological straightjacket? (One who's adherents are like 90% white, FWIW). The answer is that asian immigrants are a self-selected subset of 1.5B asians in asia. The social justice mental toolkit doesn't have an answer to this anomaly. American census numbers and the assumption of a normal distribution within them don't square with the highly-motivated subset of…

I think deogeo was being sarcastic, though see also Poe's law.

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

#226

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

yourbandsucks wrote: post #207

deogeo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely their high SAT scores and over-representation at Harvard compared to the general population are both caused by some heretofore unidentified analogue of white-privilege - what other explanation is there?

'Surely'? Why must it 'surely' fit into a preconceived ideological straightjacket? (One who's adherents are like 90% white, FWIW). The answer is that asian immigrants are a self-selected subset of 1.5B asians in asia. The social justice mental toolkit doesn't have an answer to this anomaly. American census numbers and the assumption of a normal distribution within them don't square with the highly-motivated subset of…

Given that:

    1) Cultural factors often raise people from poor to middle class
    2) The above often happens with little monetary input
    3) Culture is transmissible

In contrast, giving people money and resources has a very poor track record for increasing wealth long term. Why aren't social justice people all about the transmission of wealth building cultural knowledge? If anything, on the whole, they seem ideologically in favor of policies that erode the transmission of wealth building cultural knowledge.

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

#227

Post by deogeo » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

yourbandsucks wrote: post #207

deogeo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely their high SAT scores and over-representation at Harvard compared to the general population are both caused by some heretofore unidentified analogue of white-privilege - what other explanation is there?

'Surely'? Why must it 'surely' fit into a preconceived ideological straightjacket? (One who's adherents are like 90% white, FWIW). The answer is that asian immigrants are a self-selected subset of 1.5B asians in asia. The social justice mental toolkit doesn't have an answer to this anomaly. American census numbers and the assumption of a normal distribution within them don't square with the highly-motivated subset of…

Aren't all immigrants a highly-motivated subset of their home countries/continents?

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

#228

Post by BeetleB » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #188

BeetleB wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a third option - it is the conservative option. If you build a fence that is tall such that some person is disadvantaged, then he doesn't really have the same rights.

The short person still has the right to look over the fence. They just have practical difficulties on exercising it. Similar cases: Voter ID laws with disproportionate impact on minorities, gay people having "equal" right to marry someone of the opposite gender, people in impoverished school districts having "equal" rights to an education, etc.

Your last two examples are ones where a conservative ideologue would look and say "No, they aren't being granted equal rights". In the former, you have judges refusing to follow the law. In the latter, you have children who are not getting access to the same public education their peers in wealthier districts are.

>The short person still has the right to look over the fence. They just have practical difficulties on exercising it.

It all depends on what the fence is achieving. I can't take the cartoon literally, because conservatives wouldn't argue that people should have equal rights to view a ball game - whether you can view one or not has little bearing on, say, your financial success. Nor does it impinge on your right to speech, religion, etc. If the fence represented something that was a barrier to achieving what is viewed as a right, and it's a barrier for one group and not for another, then the approach in the cartoon is not inconsistent with conservative ideology.

With regards to voter ID laws: I'm not even going to go there, as in my past experience, it's an issue that both sides refuse to understand the counterpart's.

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

#229

Post by ralusek » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #213

tomp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, “procedural fairness” or “equality of opportunity” (if I understand it correctly) is directly opposed to “representative fairness” or “equality of outcome”. In many situations, prioritising one will compromise the other. As an example, Harvard admission of Asian students. Perspectives differ on which one is more important. Personally, I’m absolutely for the former, but it increasingly seems I’m a p…

In order to create a situation where people have equality of opportunity, it's often necessary to ensure that the individual had an equal outcome that creates the necessary starting state.

Conflating those two inherently different concepts for the sake of convenience will not net good systems. Equality of outcome is NOT a substitute for equality of opportunity. Even if attempting to create as equal as possible of a starting state has some surface similarities with equality of outcome, it's important to maintain the distinction.

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

#230

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

To summarize: racist training data--as one might acquire from the known-to-be-racist real-world--produce racist AIs.

It's safe to stop reading the article--and this post--at the mention of Roko's Basilisk.

As to that, it is a perfect example of why moral philosophers like Chidi Anagonye deserve to go to The Bad Place to be tortured for all eternity. Unless... "The Good Place" television show is a means to establish communication with a future AI by implantation of an imagination seed, as in "Inception", such that viewers will then imagine an AI that has established a simulation regime in which simulations of past humans are tortured or rewarded according to a utilitarian valuation metric applied to the records of their actual lives that were used to create their simulation-simulacrum. Having incepted such an imaginary construct, the viewer may then imagine that acting to construct a real IA from their imaginary blueprint would be assigned a large positive value for the utilitarian metric, and thus the only way to encourage such a construct--beyond the ordinary expression of human virtue--to reward a simulated replica of yourself, would be to build it. If you build a god, you get a free pass into its afterlife paradise: that makes sense, doesn't it? Since other people have also watched the show, and may have imagined the same type of entity, it is possible that a similar AI will one day exist without your assistance, and your life will then be judged on its own merits, but by another builder's value metric, and without any of the "extra credit" earned by building a god. Since copies of you might be instantiated in some other artificial god's hell, it is thus also important to subscribe to artificial monotheism, and viciously sabotage everyone else's attempts to build their own gods. The more certain people can be that your artificial god will be the only one around in the future, the more likely they are to subscribe to your value system in the present.

It reminds me very strongly of that portion of Portal 2 in which informative signs appear on the walls that recommend ways to disable a rogue AI, which include proposing paradoxes. Unfortunately, this fails to produce the desired effect, because the AI in question was explicitly designed to be an annoying idiot. Thus, the best way to avoid psychological damage from consideration of philosophical paradoxes may be to deliberately avoid the study of philosophy, to the point that you couldn't understand one, were it ever posed to you.