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AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

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Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? I could divide people into 'tall', 'medium' and 'short' buckets. Someone else could categorize them all into just two categories (eg: 'tall' and 'short') instead, and someone else might argue that I've chosen bad cutoffs, and tell me I incorrectly put a bunch of 'medium' people in the 'short' bucket. Peop…

That is only true if the distribution of things within the continuum is not "lumpy". For height it isn't, but for other things it is. For example gender is highly bimodal, yet still a continuum. Would you say that "male" and "female" are subjective socially constructed categories? Of course not. Race is probably somewhere in-between. There are people all over the spectrum but there are pretty clear large groups with…

I would argue that "male" and "female" can be subjective socially constructed categories in certain contexts. For example, intersex people exist, people with hormone conditions exist. Whether these people are male or female is a very hairy and nuanced conversation that is viewed on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes creates controversies, such as women who have XY chromosomes and naturally elevated testosterone being disqualified from competing as women in elite sports.

See: Caster Semenya, who is disqualified from competing as a woman because she has XY chromosomes and naturally elevated testosterone. She's intersex. Her only supposed recourse is to take medication to force her testosterone levels lower to be qualified as a woman. Of course, the organization is now defining who counts as a woman to qualify for women's sports is likely making socially constructed categories.

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#312

Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing eithe…

Race is both biological and social.

Biologically, forget about bone density etc. Skin color, facial features, face shape, etc are discernable directly.

Race as a social construct is the idea (originally rooted in imperialism and colonialism) that certain races are inferior mentally and societal development wise. A few Brits saw Africans residing in huts and living on farming using primitive tools and concluded that they could not develop any further than that and that their brain development was limited. (Of course, this was perpetrated to enable guilt free enslaving and "civilizing" them and exploiting them for labour. I am sure that if African societies were simply introduced to western civilization and allowed to trade and travel, the ideas from west would have been adopted and assimilated much quickly)

So, biologically, races are distinct, identifiable and have evolved to meet the needs of their local environment. But socially, races as inferior or superior was perpetrated with ulterior motives and have been shown as false time and again.

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#314

Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing eithe…

I am not so sure it matters.

Every human biology can be seen as a gradient of physical shape and material composition but falling within a rough spec.

I don’t see making race a social construct as all that useful. Not to take it away, because I say the same about gender and sexual preferences; so long as people aren’t being fascist and abusive, ethno-scientific objects need not be constrained to appearance.

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A modern definition of "species" generally gives a set of objective criteria that you can use to determine if two organisms are the same species (such as "can they produce fertile offspring"). Is there any definition of race like this? Genuine question, I don't think I've ever seen a definition of race more specific than "a collection of people with similar physical characteristics" or something like that, and I can'…

The imprecise definition of "species" is exactly what I was describing. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_concept

I agree we don't have a perfect definition of species, but I'm wondering if we have literally any definition of race. Has anybody even tried? Is there any criteria more specific than "if two people look very different then they are different races"?

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Thinking is too hard and scary, let's go shopping! Maybe if diseases are distributed differently across different races, it can make testing and treating them more cost effective, leading to an overall improvement in health outcomes. I'm not going to waste my sickle cell anemia test kits on testing Icelandic people. Do you apply this same logic to people who study esoteric branches of mathematics with n…

Esoteric branches of mathematics do not have a long and ongoing history of being used to marginalize and take advantage of groups of people. And I notice you cannot answer any of my questions as to how you would define races.

Ok, so again, that is my point: Race is too dangerous to study, the bad people might make the wrong conclusions with it.

I have no idea how you would define race. I don't know why you would expect me to. I also have no idea how you specifically define certain other aspects of biology that you probably accept as real and accurate, because I'm not a biologist or a geneticist.

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Thinking is too hard and scary, let's go shopping! Maybe if diseases are distributed differently across different races, it can make testing and treating them more cost effective, leading to an overall improvement in health outcomes. I'm not going to waste my sickle cell anemia test kits on testing Icelandic people. Do you apply this same logic to people who study esoteric branches of mathematics with n…

OK, I'll speak in terms you might get. Humans have a myriad of visible characteristics: height, weight, skin color, eye color and shape, hair color and type, shapes of facial features, and so on. All these characteristics vary continuously. If you see that data as points filling a high-dimensional cube, there's not going to be an empty space there. Some areas are going to be denser than the others, but there are no g…

Do you believe that life begins at conception? Or at birth?

Or is it somewhere in between? Do you feel comfortable marking the line where life possibly begins? If you mark it before birth, aren't you just giving ammunition to anti-abortion advocates to take away freedom from women? Should we just say that life begins at birth, and shut down anyone who asks otherwise, because anything else is dangerous and possibly arbitrary and not 100% accurate in rare cases?

Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but is it accurate to say that our concept of race amounts to labeling different clusters in an N-dimensional space (where the dimensions are largely biological traits)? I.e., while labeling clusters always entails some amount of approximation (clusters are inherently nebulous), we still label clusters because it's useful. For example, the boundaries between languages are imprecise, but we still bin/label th…

So which "race" is the child mentioned above, German or Irish? Sure, they have aspects of both, but they can be in only one cluster. The utility of clusters is nebulous, too.

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Re: AI Recognises Race in Medical Images

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's because it's very dubious the AI is doing what the paper is maintaining it's doing. People are not 'race x' or 'race y' biologically, as if race is some discrete set of features common to a whole population. Every individual has a set of biological features inherited from their ancestors which, theoretically, could include any or all so-called 'races'. Human beings have a continuum of features that is heavil…

Aliens may as well sort us by the colour of our pants as soon as the colour of our skin, but let's not pretend that such an obvious visual variation as skin tone would be overlooked. White cat, tabby cat, grey cat, etc? We don't try to say one sort of cat is better than other, but we can tell them apart very well. Maybe what you're saying is that the aliens would not have the same prejudices associated with that mark…

That depends on the Alien's primary mode of sense. Which may not be sight. Sight is particularly strong for humans. But what if the Aliens primarily distinguish based on smell like many animal species with poor colour vision?
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