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There's a fine paper called "Bias in Computer Systems" which is helpful in thinking about these problems. https://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/biasin
by theoh 10y ago
There's a fine paper called "Bias in Computer Systems" which is helpful in thinking about these problems.
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/biasincomputers.pdf https://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/biasincompute...
I found this recently in an appendix of Susan Leigh Star's book "Standards and their stories" which outlines a syllabus for the teaching of "infrastructure studies". The reading list also discusses the consequences of systems of categorization such as the DSM and medical notions of gender.
- spangry 10y agoFor well over a year now I've been mulling over about the damaging effects of DSM's categorisation of mental pathology. It had never occurred to me that this issue might be of more universal concern. For what it's worth, I think the damage caused by DSM stems from inaccurately modelling mental illness as: (1) binary propositions instead of assessing functionality/dysfunctional on a continuum (i.e. you either have 'major depressive disorder' or you don't); and (2) discrete and distinct 'diseases', instead of the cumulative effects of dysfunction/abnormality in multiple neural 'sub-systems'. If you're interested in the DSM case, and the likely way forward (from my understanding, the convergence of psychiatry and neurobiology and increasingly accurate and affordable neuro-imaging techniques), the textbook "Stahl's Essential Pharmacology" is well worth a read.
- spangry 10y agoAh crud. That should actually be "Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology".