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Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

time.com

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Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#3
Disallowing the use of race as a signal in machine learning / ad targeting could help intercultural awareness. Here's the last paragraph of the article:

"""

O’Neil also proposes updating existing civic rights oriented legislation to make it clear that it encompasses computerized algorithms. One thing that her book has already made quite clear – far from being coolly scientific, Big Data comes with all the biases of its creators. It’s time to stop pretending that people wielding the most numbers necessarily have the right answers.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#6
post #3

Disallowing the use of race as a signal in machine learning / ad targeting could help intercultural awareness. Here's the last paragraph of the article: """ O’Neil also proposes updating existing civic rights oriented legislation to make it clear that it encompasses computerized algorithms. One thing that her book has already made quite clear – far from being coolly scientific, Big Data comes with all the biases of i…

Conversely, what if the numbers are unbias and we are in fact the bias ones. What if, for example, Irish Americans are actually more prone to purchase Guinness beer because we feel that it has a slightly higher alcohol content then all those other beers?

Tongue and cheek response, but "wielding numbers"? Politicians don't misuse statistics to get what they want, people misuse statistics to get what we want. We shouldn't ban statistics and we shouldn't ignore the fact that both "sides" are equally susceptible.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#7
A wide array of concerns, but I stopped reading when the article explains that algorithms are going to keep people from being aware that poor people exist. If the only awareness someone has of poverty is from the Internet ads or any other content, then they really don't know anything about it at all. This sounds more like the people that protested computers in the 60's because they are used for war.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#8
post #2

"she shows how the algorithms [...] are based on exactly the sort of shallow and volatile type of data sets that informed those faulty mortgage models in the run up to 2008" so the fault is of the technology, right?

Well there is a paradox here, if the models were faulty, then why was every bank scrambling to offload the mortgages to someone else? If the models said the mortgages were sound, why didn't the banks want to hold onto them as a cash cow? Could it be the data spoke but no-one wanted to hear what it said?

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#9
> add more police to his neighborhood because of higher violent crime rates will necessarily be more likely to be targeted for any petty violation

He'll also be less likely to be the victim of violent crime in an area with a proven record for violent crime. For the price of avoiding 'petty' crimes, it seems like a good trade-off.

Re: Mathematician Says Big Data Is Causing a ‘Silent Financial Crisis’

#10
post #3

Disallowing the use of race as a signal in machine learning / ad targeting could help intercultural awareness. Here's the last paragraph of the article: """ O’Neil also proposes updating existing civic rights oriented legislation to make it clear that it encompasses computerized algorithms. One thing that her book has already made quite clear – far from being coolly scientific, Big Data comes with all the biases of i…

> Disallowing the use of race as a signal in machine learning / ad targeting could help intercultural awareness.

Uhm, racial segregation is still a thing. Even if the signal of race is gone the geography of where a person lives could be signal enough to discriminate.

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