Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

fatml.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 57 posts

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#11

Post by angmarsbane »

reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

It isn't so much bad or negative as it is risky. A homemaker, male or female, becomes financially reliant on his/her partner. A partner who can die, become too disabled/ill to work, or who can leave after the homemaker has missed his/her key career/skill building years.

Women are more likely to be pushed or encouraged to take this important supportive role to benefit others while putting themselves at risk.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#12

Post by [deleted] »

backpropaganda wrote: post #2

If I were training a classifier to predict whether a sentence is talking about household activities v/s not, wouldn't the occurrence of man/woman in the sentence be a good feature? Today, woman do perform household activities more (whether we like it or not), and wouldn't it make sense to use that piece of information when performing some predictive analysis? The technical sense of "bias" arises when the train and te…

[deleted]

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#13

Post by AstralStorm »

reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

Because it pays less (therefore enforcing financial gender inequality for which there is no good reason) and has been stereotyped for longer. It is sort of backwards thinking.

The often unspoken assumption is that stereotypes are strictly bad and evil. Without stereotypes, all the social conduct just breaks down and explodes - people suddenly become unpredictable.

However, stereotypes (including SJW stereotype) can cause big frictions between groups. Even more so when they're actually inaccurate, invalid or misapplied.

Another thing is something called "stereotype threat" which reinforces certain behaviors while punishing other - a kind of self fulfilling prophecy at times. You think you would behave as if some label would be applied to you therefore you behave to fit in. The drive to fit in is human, social and often subconscious.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#14

Post by vtange »

This is the tug-o-war of influencer v. influencee. A machine that just tells-it-as-it-is might hold an advantage over one that willingly ignores some data to promote a different view of the world.

Personally, I see more danger in people trying to make machines that evangelize their own biases to the world than machines being molded by the existing social assumptions of society, given that we expect machines to perform most of the work/control most of the resources in the future.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#15

Post by AstralStorm »

angmarsbane wrote: post #11
reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

It isn't so much bad or negative as it is risky. A homemaker, male or female, becomes financially reliant on his/her partner. A partner who can die, become too disabled/ill to work, or who can leave after the homemaker has missed his/her key career/skill building years. Women are more likely to be pushed or encouraged to take this important supportive role to benefit others while putting themselves at risk.

It goes both ways, the partner can become reliant on this kind of support. And only sometimes partly you can cover the difference with money and/or power - typically much more expensive than cooperation.

In fact I'd say the housekeeping skills are always more marketable, more basic and easier to master - you can live off them, but not without. This gives rise to competition which drives both social perception of value and actual financial value down.

Mutual dependency has been the way of life for ages - for good reason.

Edit: Thought police strikes again! Instead of downvoting, please provide a coherent argument why a given point is invalid or how.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#16

Post by kingbirdy »

reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

No one ever became a billionaire by homemaking

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#17

Post by [deleted] »

reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

[deleted]

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#18

Post by anigbrowl »

backpropaganda wrote: post #2

If I were training a classifier to predict whether a sentence is talking about household activities v/s not, wouldn't the occurrence of man/woman in the sentence be a good feature? Today, woman do perform household activities more (whether we like it or not), and wouldn't it make sense to use that piece of information when performing some predictive analysis? The technical sense of "bias" arises when the train and te…

No, it would not be a good feature. For one thing, baking the bias of existing practices as opposed to constraints risks reinforcing that practice as more and more decision-making is left to ML. Second it makes your system vulnerable to verbal paradoxes designed to exploit that bias.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#19

Post by AstralStorm »

kingbirdy wrote: post #16
reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

No one ever became a billionaire by homemaking

Except companies that outsource such services and the whole service industry in hotels or such. Use less straw in your strawmen.

Of course this is often parasitic and I suspect you meant directly. Even then, thing called "gold digging" has a long long tradition. (Though being misattributed to women while it works on both sides just slightly differently. Often with more than a hint of slut-shaming etc.)

Edit: excellent. Call a thing like it is, get downvoted. People jump to conclusions, proving the point.

Re: Machine Bias: Man Is to Computer Programmer as Woman Is to Homemaker?

#20

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

kingbirdy wrote: post #16
reader5000 wrote: post #4

In the sjw-religion, why is "homemaker" considered inferior to "computer programmer"? One of the oldest and most important human occupations versus hunched over at a desk slaving for a salary until being outsourced to a bot in 5 years? I've never understood the default sjw/"feminism" assumptions that anything feminine is "bad".

No one ever became a billionaire by homemaking

Martha Stewart got halfway there.
Post reply on HN