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Sentenced by Algorithm

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Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#51

Post by nickthemagicman »

jarcane wrote: post #44
tdeck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what OP meant is "if the algorithm were designed (or perhaps implemented) in the 1700s according to standards of fairness held by those in power at that time, then it might have treated African Americans unfairly (despite being an algorithm)". I'm not a mind reader but that seems to make some sense given the context of the discussion.

You don't have to go back to the 1700s to find African Americans being treated poorly by the judicial system. It's a weird shifting of the sands that isn't necessary to the conversation, when the context is a subject that is causing real harm now .

That supports my point even more.

If certain groups of people are being treated poorly in modern times then an algorithm that sentences people would possibly include that bias as well.

Is that statement offensive to you?

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#52

Post by nickthemagicman »

crooked-v wrote: post #35
jeffypoo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your outrage radar is a little too sensitive pal.

You don't see any problem with the "may have"?

Come on. Plantation era slavery was great! Free housing, free food, a lot of excercise, no Bay Area rent prices.

What's the big deal?

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#53

Post by masklinn »

foxfired wrote: post #37

Is the sentencing the bottleneck in the justice system? Is it something that is so tedious to do that we rather have a machine do it? Or is it that we want to eliminate bias so we let the algorithm do it? Because machines are cold calculator that only cares about the data. Or is it shifting the responsibility? If a judge gives a light sentence to a person who ends up committing a crime again, does the judge get the b…

> "Well the machine said he was clean, it knows a thing or two we don't know. Plus it's a black box I'm just an ol judge. I don't know how email works, but it works all the same."

Sounds like that, and the usual bias laundering because “AI” is helpful for that.

AFAIK a sentencing hearing usually takes minutes, maybe an hour if the parties don’t agree and there are lots of victims or witnesses and the judge wants to hear from them. Only in rather exceptional case does the judge need to adjourn for sentencing.

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#54

Post by masklinn »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #51
jarcane wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to go back to the 1700s to find African Americans being treated poorly by the judicial system. It's a weird shifting of the sands that isn't necessary to the conversation, when the context is a subject that is causing real harm now .

That supports my point even more. If certain groups of people are being treated poorly in modern times then an algorithm that sentences people would possibly include that bias as well. Is that statement offensive to you?

> If certain groups of people are being treated poorly in modern times then an algorithm that sentences people would possibly include that bias as well.

I’d even change the word “would” to “will” as that has already occurred time and again.

I think you two are violently agreeing with one another, but misunderstanding one another as well.

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#56

Post by swayvil »

AstralStorm wrote: post #40
swayvil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but we would have a lot more free time. Life would be simpler. And as long as you keep your behavior within the statistical sweet-zone the justicebots will leave you alone. (Much like social media, actually)

Look up chilling effects. This would be literally a kind of enforced conservatism. Imagine this was up when Gallileo was being sentenced. How many Socrateses do you want to prevent? And so on. Society can be wrong and mindlessly enforcing status quo is often immoral.

Yes. As I said. It might not be a free society, per se.

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#57

Post by smusamashah »

Isn't the court system itself flawed already. How can one person win a case by hiring a "better lawyer". It means the other party can be proven wrong if you have enough money. Which means court system does not depend on facts as much as how lawyers twists words to fit a law.

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#58

Post by stickfigure »

notahacker wrote: post #45
candiodari wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been shown many times that if you know the human making the decisions, you can game it by knowing the person, or anything from having a preexisting relationship with them, being famous, dependence (e.g. they're a tenant of you, or a landlord), planting ideas, ... Most of these are not illegal, or even possible to avoid. And then, of course, there's racism, nepotism and outright bribery. Humans, under the best…

You miss the point. We don't have a computer process that establishes factors such as the level of remorse expressed by the offender or their claimed motive, whether their misinterpretation of the relevant law is plausible or not, or the magnitude of the harm caused to the victim or whether the plaintiff's claim of monetary losses suffered is plausible or not so the "algorithm" is a thin veneer over a human determini…

I think the point is that we are currently using opaque, poorly trained and erratic ML (Meat Learning) algorithms. Oh sure the meatbox says that it's allocating N years for this, M years for that, but empirical studies have proven that this readout is nonsense.

Which kind of ML is easier to train to be non-racist? I don't know, but it's not obvious to me that meat is the winner here.

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#59

Post by wkimeria »

TanteTara wrote: post #39

I miss any discussion about the elephant in the room: On what data does a potential algorithm base its decision? Who puts in that data? If you know how the algorithm works (and this one must be open source), you can game it by manipulating the data it gets to see (or not) and how the specific wording is. Can the algorithm generate and ask questions by itself? Again that would be pointless if you know the algorithm -…

Exactly this. Washington Post had an article sometime ago about software used in sentencing/parole that consistently judged black defendants more harshly (recommended longer sentences than white people for the same exact crime and recommended parole at a lower rate for black prisoners). The software was proprietary and there was no access to the code but even if it were perfectly written it learned from the data fed to it.

The software came to the conclusion that race (black vs white) was a predictor of crime and recidivism. How did it come to this conclusion? Because of the data

- Black people get arrested at a higher rate than white people

- Black people were also more likely to re-offend than white people

So the conclusion that the program came to makes sense. But it totally ignores the external factors that lead to the 2 above statistics

- Black neighborhoods are more heavily and more aggressively policed, meaning that you will uncover more crimes.

- Black people are targeted by police (black and whites consume drugs at the same rate, but black people are more likely to get stopped, more likely to get searched and more likely to get arrested)

- Over their lifetime, black people are more likely to have more contact with police (even if they live in an all white neighborhood). All it takes is for one of those times they commit a minor infraction (having weed on them etc). That conviction then becomes a justification for elevating their 'risk' level.

- Black ex-convicts have a harder time getting jobs due to inherent bias (all ex-convicts have a hard time, but black ex-convicts have a much harder time). This closes off avenues to gainful employment making turning back to crime one of the few options available to them. And once again, black ex-convicts have more contact with police than white ex-convicts.

Sans context, the input data can be an incredibly effective way of propogating bias into the model.

Even strong AI will not solve for this without some corrections/mintigating strategies. The most effective strategy would be solving the policing problem (bias, over-policing, how we close off all avenues at rehabilitation to people who have been convicted of victimless crimes)

Re: Sentenced by Algorithm

#60

Post by unishark »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #50
unishark wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the US was somewhat unusual in its lax treatment of illegal immigration. However lying to or sneaking past border officials to enter a country is literally a crime yes (certainly for foreign nationals, and probably not kosher for citizens to do either). Though entering on a visitor visa and overstaying is just a civil violation with a civil penalty (deportation). If a citizen had a record of using false ide…

Interesting example of how context can affect the sentencing and seriousness of the crime!

Well if you enter as a legal visitor through a border checkpoint you give the govt the opportunity to do security checks, restrict import of various things, charge customs taxes. Plus they have an idea you are there. It makes sense that sidestepping some or all of that screening and record-keeping will be treated more harshly.
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