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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

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Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#251

Post by 50656E6973 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #206
50656E6973 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's pseudo-social-science because it falsely assumes outcomes are solely determined by external variables and is completely ignorant of internal variables, such as differing cultural values. Some cultures value family life over money, others value money over family life, for example.

I'm sorry, this reply doesn't make sense to me. What does "different cultures are different" have to do with whether computer systems can be discriminatory or not?

I agree, of course computers extend and amplify our prejudices.

But as the article states in it's conclusion:

>Just because something is expressed in numbers doesn’t make it right

Many statistical social differences are often automatically attributed to discrimination based solely on "numbers".

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#252

Post by weberc2 »

porphyrogene wrote: post #18
weberc2 wrote: post #7

Of course ML algorithms can be biased; rather than engaging an Internet layperson who tried to contradict AOC with a silly argument, it would be more interesting if the article engaged the more salient counterpoint to claims like these--attempts to eliminate bias can introduce bias as well. Anyway, the article is not written in good faith; it's only a step above "BOOM AOC owns Internet conservatives!". There's an int…

The article has an appropriate amount of technical and political discussion. The words “she is right” are simply not in this community’s vocabulary.

The article portrays the issue "whether or not ML models can be racially biased" as inherently conservative based on a sample of 1. This isn't even a very interesting question to the HN community, since we largely know that this is a resolved issue; the more interesting conversation would be about what we should do about it (as opposed to whether or not a particular tribe was wrong about an issue, which is what the article was designed to incite, by all appearances).

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#253

Post by hannasanarion »

billy_beef wrote: post #243
hannasanarion wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, this reply doesn't make sense to me. What does "different cultures are different" have to do with whether computer systems can be discriminatory or not?

you should ignore that comment, it's an incredibly disingenuous claim intended to mask the racist sentiment that 'non-white people are over-represented in american prison populations because they don't value not being in prison as much as white people do'.

That's what I thought, but I'm trying hard lately to be less angry on the internet, so I took the most charitable interpretation possible. Which still didn't make any sense, of course, because the person is a racist jerk.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#254

Post by dang »

shadowbained wrote: post #42
whiddershins wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have to be sure the groups you are equalizing across are fair and valid and comprehensive groups.

I've been advocating for the rights of my own group "left handed 1/64 cherokee Americans with hazel eyes and slighly wavy brown hair" forever and I've been STUNNED at how quick people are to ignore the systemic bias against us. Some other categories of people seem to be doing much better than us, which is only explainable from systemic bias. Unless we are down with being complicit in a "right handed non partially che…

We've banned this account for trolling. That's what flamebait on inflammatory topics is, intentionally or not.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#255

Post by leetcrew »

jstarfish wrote: post #241
leetcrew wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take an 18-year old with a red Mustang and a 58-year old with a midlife crisis and a 3-series. Both drive like assholes. Both will inevitably cause an accident. this is not a fair example; by assumption we have much more information about the 58yo than the 18yo. remove the bit about the midlife crisis and there's no reason to think the 58yo is anywhere near the same risk to insure. as a group, young people are less…

> unless you disagree that the goal of insurance is to spread risk among a bucket of people who have relatively similar risk factors, I'm not really sure where you're going with this. I don't disagree. In this context, if older men make fewer insurance claims, they're better customers. On paper, he's less of a risk (to the insurer). In reality, they're both risks to other drivers. But only the 18-year old will be hel…

I think I misunderstood the point of your argument. at first I thought you were specifically singling out car insurance as being unfair, which seemed odd to me, as it seems pretty close to WAD to me.

if you are just using it as an example of a misleading dataset, we are probably in agreement.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#256

Post by dleslie »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #214
dleslie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a writer once discussed the power that exists in limiting and controlling the language used in public discourse... /s

jpmcglone and dgzl were proposing the opposite of that. Newspeak eliminated words so that some ideas simply could not be expressed. They propose adding words so that dissimilar things can be distinguished from each other - to expand the things that can be (clearly) expressed.

Yes, their concern is about the misuse and/or confusion of a limited lexicon. I understood that they propose adding words; and I suggested that there is power to be found in not doing so. It can be beneficial to some if we are unable to speak precisely and without misunderstanding. It can be beneficial to some to co-opt existing words for new uses.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#258

Post by cmiles74 »

malvosenior wrote: post #139
cmiles74 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that racism cannot be solely an issue of someone's intent, it needs to be evaluated by the outcome. An outcome is a fact that we can all observe. An intent is internal to a person, we can never get a clear view of a person's intent; at best we can make deductions as to a person's intent based on their behavior. Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an…

> Claiming that racism can be evaluated only by the intent is simply moving the goal posts into an area where we can't clearly observe. It's a tactic. Claiming racism is anything but intent is changing the definition of racism. Which is: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior ." If you start changing the definition of…

I don't disagree. But I don't think we can judge the intent of people who are discriminating in a racist way, aside from simply asking them what the think their intent might have been. At that point it's very likely we'll be dealing with a rationalization or a half-truth because not only is there a stigma attached to racist behavior but in many cases it is illegal as well and there are other punishments to contend with.

If we need to accurately gauge their intent, that's not really possible. In the case of an algorithm we've divorced the process from the source of intent (the author of the algorithm), there is no intent to evaluate.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#259

Post by claudiawerner »

tunesmith wrote: post #157
BeetleB wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haidt's book The Righteous Mind does touch on this - he'll likely have references to the studies in his book. What he says the studies show: Conservative ideology: Fairness is about guaranteeing everyone equal rights. If different people have different outcomes, the question is: Did one person have more rights than the other? If so, let's correct for it. If not, it is because the person did not fully utilize his/her…

If his studies basically equated liberal ideology with communism (equal outcomes), I think I'm a lot less inclined to read his book. You know, what I'd really like is for parties or candidates to identify what they think the appropriate GINI coefficient should be for the US.

>If his studies basically equated liberal ideology with communism (equal outcomes)

It's an easy mistake to make, but Communism (at least as Marx and his contemporaries and Lenin envisaged it) does not have anything to do with the principle of equal outcomes except in a very narrow sense - this sense being equality of privileges to some portion of society.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#260

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

arcaster wrote: post #80
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct, than about being morally right”

But to be "morally" right you have to have an ample understanding of what is and is not explicitly fact that's actually based in reality. Otherwise, the consensus of what fact is becomes irrelevant and the guise of morality simply becomes little more than barbed wire or nails wrapped around the baseball bat of which ever narrative or ideology our leaders intend to pursue... Even as a very progressive young person, AO…

> what is and is not explicitly fact that's actually based in reality

It's incredibly difficult to split apart explicit fact from our own biases though. There wasn't a time too long ago that facts, as certain national and cultural groups understood them to be, were used to commit terrible atrocities.

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