111–120 of 180 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it seems like both you and the twitter thread have anecdotal evidence. I'd say that the fact that an internal investigation is being launched leads credence to the belief that the discrimination is at least possible .
Saying you're going to launch an internal investigation is often a way of calming a PR fire. For a question like this, people can often get an answer with a phone call or email.
I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. It could be "it's a new product, we randomly assign credit limits to see how it affects behavior". It could be "it's a community property state and we're overexposed to this household if we give the second card the same limit as the first". It could, realistically, be almost anything ex…
Here you have a bank and a company known for secrecy.
But you acknowledge this;
> random CSRs don't get a pithy explanation
What the throwers of hissy fits are pointing to is that, by building blackboxes, you can get whatever result you want (which doesn't mean all results are expected) with plausible deniability.
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In the modern economy it’s impossible to not be constantly and pervasively impacted by these data models. I think it’s reasonable to assert that it is in society’s best interest to make sure that the effects and impacts of these models are communicated as perfectly as possible to those who are forced to live under their purview. What way is this done besides viewing the model? (And given the state of regulatory captu…
Lenders can still realize a reasonable profit while ensuring people are not improperly discriminated against by machine intelligence. Effective regulation is possible. I would even be willing to serve a tour of duty standing up such a regulatory body, perhaps as a division of the CFPB. Throwing up your hands that government is ineffective entirely is unreasonable, just as asking for all models to be public is.
Heck, as I think about this further--wouldn't transparent models help realize those reasonable profits? If everybody's cards are on the table, doesn't that encourage the market to move towards perfect competition?
I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. It could be "it's a new product, we randomly assign credit limits to see how it affects behavior". It could be "it's a community property state and we're overexposed to this household if we give the second card the same limit as the first". It could, realistically, be almost anything ex…
> I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. There certainly is. Ignoring the anecdotal data of people replying to him who saw the same outcome, credit scores for women skew lower than for men. One of many sources: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/gend...
Which is crazy, because for most of my guy friends (myself included), saying that their significant others/women make significantly better financial decisions is putting it far too lightly. I basically wasn't making decisions at all (besides savings) until my s/o set me right.
This discrimination is tragic and disgusting.
The response to codinghorror's "then don't use the Apple Card? Solution seems obvious" is on point: > This is such a shallow, disappointing take. If we relegate all responsibility for discrimination to the individuals discriminated against, nothing is going to change! Individual action against structural problems is INSUFFICIENT.
The difference between a solution and a workaround. "Not using the product" is a workaround. A solution addresses the root of the problem, and the root of the product's problem is seldom "The consumer bought the product".
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Speaking out about what? The guy appears to be claiming that a company is discriminating against women with no evidence aside from a single anecdote. Seems like he's some sort of rich 1%er founder, probably not approved under any sort of standard model the typical applicant will fit into, and thus has a crazy high limit. Is there anything more to this than typical twitter mock indignation and outrage? Now, if his wif…
As explained in the very first tweet in the thread, DHH’s wife is exactly as wealthy as DHH. That’s part of the frustration expressed.
Seems like my initial comment was on point then.
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What we really need is the ability to force organizations to expose their models.
Problem is once a model is exposed it can be easily gamed
You can manipulate them of course, by taking out a cheap loan that you don't necessarily need and things like that. Plenty of people use a credit card for a few expenses (say fuel) just to establish a history.
You can't determine A, simple as that. The only way would be if Apple/GS comes out and says something like "he capped out the household credit limit", which Apple/GS would probably only tell him anyways.
B is a different issue, one with lots of room to actually converse over. But it's one which the author seems to pivot to after some reasonable arguments are presented as to why her credit limit was literally $57, making his argument for A very weak.
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I've heard anecdotally a number of times that actuaries peg men with higher car insurance rates. I'm only just learning that there's anything like this in the credit system to prevent gender bias. Does something like that protection exist for auto insurance? As a side note, Idon't really understand the thread's appeal to credit scores here, considering that the TransUnion rating system is supposed to be the inferior…
For car insurance? This is incredibly well known and not at all anecdotal. There was even a popular car insurance firm in the UK that only gave women car insurance if they were women called “Sheilas Wheels” which touted lower fees than “other insurance companies that have to also cater to men”. https://youtu.be/GzNJh1o84-E
Anecdotally I've been told that (British car) insurers don't care very much about your real actuarial risk, they're focused more on whether you'll actually pay their premiums. Specifically I was told that work to integrate with credit checking services was a priority whereas an integration with the UK Government's service which gives them access to driving offences and other records related to a driving license was back-burnered.
The reason I was given was that in practice they'd found if you require drivers to give their license details, it causes a big drop in purchases, if you make the license details _optional_ lots of people fill them in, and you can just give all those people a better price even though you don't use the details to actually check anything automatically.
I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. It could be "it's a new product, we randomly assign credit limits to see how it affects behavior". It could be "it's a community property state and we're overexposed to this household if we give the second card the same limit as the first". It could, realistically, be almost anything ex…
I would love a customer-company relationship in which the customer gets meaningful information by privately contacting the company with a polite message, but in my experience this is rare. When an answer comes, it tends to misdirect rather than tell the whole truth. Here you have a bank and a company known for secrecy. But you acknowledge this; > random CSRs don't get a pithy explanation What the throwers of hissy fi…