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Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

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Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#101

Post by ufo »

danso wrote: post #67
userbinator wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

positives (anyone named "Fuck", ostensibly). This guy would disagree: http://mw.eco.br/ig/prof/ReinhardtAdolfoFuck.htm Along the same lines, https://www.nie.edu.sg/profile/chew-shit-fun

Yeah, no name filter is going to be perfect for all edge cases. But presumably, it's a lot cheaper to have the Lyft support team handle email tickets from the relatively few Professor Fucks, than to have them also deal with every Cummings and Dick.

Fucks is Germanic surname. It isn't the most common, but it isn't rare either. Sometimes it is spelt "Fuchs", "Fuks", or "Fux".

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#102

Post by tomc1985 »

matthewarkin wrote: post #73
reaperducer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since a credit card is required to use Lyft, why not just validate the name on the card with the card company and make it the issuer's problem?

None of the major card networks except for American Express validate cardholder name. The Address Verification Service (AVS) also only validates numeric values (so if your address is 123 Main Street, 123 Maple Ave will return a matching response)

That feature is a configurable option (at wildly variable strengths) that is set up by the merchant when they are setting up their payment gateway. All the CC processors I have worked with provide these varying levels of Name/Address strictness.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#103

Post by manigandham »

cortesoft wrote: post #100
qwerty456127 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all bullshit anyway. A word is just a word and whenever it insults somebody it's their own problem. I would rather change my actual name to Fuck if I wasn't too lazy to deal with problems like that. I once read a story of a Vietnamese man named Hui. He had to go to the court to protect his right to be named this way in Ukraine where the word is used widely and has only one meaning - a dick.

This is a nonsensical argument. A word has meaning, which is why it is a word and not a sound. If I yell insults at you, you are saying that doesn't mean anything? And if you get insulted, it is your own fault? No, words have meaning based on a common understanding between the person saying the word and the person hearing the word. If I insult you and you understand it, it is me who did the insulting, it is not 'your…

> "And if you get insulted, it is your own fault"

Yes. It's just sounds that you hear, then your brain recognizes and turns them into words with meaning. How you react to the meaning is entirely within your consciousness. This is how you might pick up words from languages you don't know if the sounds are similar, yet you wouldn't claim to be insulted by them.

> "If the person felt threatened, that is on them""

Yes, your feelings are your own, nobody else controls them. That's one of the fundamentals of free speech. There are some very limited situations (like threats) where it's overruled, not because of your feelings but because of the intentions being forecast. Even then, there's a very high bar to prove any criminal intent there.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#105

Post by manigandham »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #12
llarsson wrote: post #3

How do they not realize what an obvious shitstorm this will cause? And who is bothered by this, really? I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers calling themselves Dick Cummings out of immaturity. So what does it really matter what the customers call themselves?

>I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers calling themselves Dick Cummings out of immaturity. So what does it really matter what the customers call themselves? That was my thought too. It's one thing if you're using obscenity in an anonymous online alias, as a great many Redditors seem to love doing, but I'm struggling to believe that it's something people do in signing up for real-life ride-sharing apps, eith…

> "Obviously there must be some amount of people doing it"

There's no data that this is true. It could simply be a project manager deciding that it's a good thing or the result of a tiny fraction of complaints.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#107

Post by qwerty456127 »

minimaxir wrote: post #6

It seems like tech companies have been doing DIY profanity filters. Apple has a profanity filter for engraving text onto a device in the online store ( https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1213188371452841984 ); intended to be your name, so terms like "Dick" have to not be filtered. I learnt that Apple has a validation endpoint. Since the engraving service was recently updated, I took a profanity wordlist and checked…

> semen: Valid

By the way Semen is the way the Russian equivalent to Simon is spelled officially. There is quite a number of Russian men who have just that for their first name in their passports. I once met one, he worked as a developer and people were making fun of his name.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#108

Post by jliptzin »

userbinator wrote: post #63
danso wrote: post #16

Besides the humor of how Lyft's filter flagged traditionally Caucasian names like "Cummings" – in addition to the usual issues with non-Western names, e.g. Pimpong and Poon – I'm fascinated/confused how this made it into production? The user database already exists and was currently being used by the live application. Before deploying this new filter onto the production database, wouldn't you do a dry run to get not…

positives (anyone named "Fuck", ostensibly). This guy would disagree: http://mw.eco.br/ig/prof/ReinhardtAdolfoFuck.htm Along the same lines, https://www.nie.edu.sg/profile/chew-shit-fun

That second link actually made me spit out coffee for the first time in my life.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#109

Post by jdavis703 »

danso wrote: post #16

Besides the humor of how Lyft's filter flagged traditionally Caucasian names like "Cummings" – in addition to the usual issues with non-Western names, e.g. Pimpong and Poon – I'm fascinated/confused how this made it into production? The user database already exists and was currently being used by the live application. Before deploying this new filter onto the production database, wouldn't you do a dry run to get not…

I’m guessing test and prod are highly-segregated to prevent improper data access. Remember when one of the app-based taxi companies had employees who spied on their exes via their system? I’m guessing they beefed up security to mitigate the insider threat risk.

Regardless, your point still stands. The product manager should have gone through whatever process was needed to pull down a limited set of production data to test against. Or the engineers could have logged exceptions in prod before making the filter active.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#110

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #107
minimaxir wrote: post #6

It seems like tech companies have been doing DIY profanity filters. Apple has a profanity filter for engraving text onto a device in the online store ( https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1213188371452841984 ); intended to be your name, so terms like "Dick" have to not be filtered. I learnt that Apple has a validation endpoint. Since the engraving service was recently updated, I took a profanity wordlist and checked…

> semen: Valid By the way Semen is the way the Russian equivalent to Simon is spelled officially. There is quite a number of Russian men who have just that for their first name in their passports. I once met one, he worked as a developer and people were making fun of his name.

Surely Semyon would be the more common way of rendering семён?
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