Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin

Post by peteradio » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

multibit wrote: post #4

> The tech firm had said it was aware of civil rights concerns but had not received any reports of law enforcement clients misusing its Rekognition tool. This really depends on their definition of "misuse", which can be molded to suit their financial goals. Eventually reports of questionable law enforcement use will come in, and I have serious doubts that any large corporation would willingly cut off sales to a large…

Post by acct1771 » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #41

lotu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really sounds preferable to me, even if the initial versions of these algorithms are biased. They will provide a concrete thing against which to test for bias and improve against. It is easily verifiable if your changes to an algorithm have removed the bias you are worried about. Conversely it is basically impossible to tell if your training on a human has changed their biases in the field, sort of just having the…

> They will provide a concrete thing against which to test for bias and improve against. The history of junk forensic science has pretty clearly demonstrated that nobody in law enforcement cares about testing their biases, or improving the processes. If it gets them results, they'll use it.

Post by mikeash » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

maest wrote: post #28

devit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they do that instead of abstaining? It seems like their duty to the index fund owners is to vote like other shareholders (which is most easily achieved by abstaining) and not like management.

They legally have to vote their shares. Individuals are exempt for that. It's interesting to think about index fund providers incentives: (1) track the market (2) do it very cheaply Voting shares is a cost center with no benefit towards the business. Fund providers don't want to spend time and money to do research on individual proposals, that would be too expensive. So they do the cheapest thing possible and default…

Post by aey » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #40

tastygreenapple wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds preferable to calculate risk scores deterministically rather than rely on Law Enforcement's discretion. Risk scores are computed for every traffic stop, wouldn't you want to take that process away from the office and give it to a computer?

> Risk scores are computed for every traffic stop, wouldn't you want to take that process away from the office and give it to a computer? What I want is this process to be cross-examinable. You can't cross-examine an algorithm in any meaningful way at a jury trial. You can't cross-examine a neural network at all . You know all the bullshit about how police dogs are used to conduct illegal searches, and how you can't…

Post by mushufasa » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

oldjokes wrote: post #11

Is this really a valid test anymore with 50%+ of outstanding shares being held by index funds? Who actually controls the companies when shareholders don't really exist like they used to? What does shareholder primacy even mean anymore?