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Am I the only one who is a little offended that just because you own a pickup truck then you must be conservative, and if you own a Tesla you must be liberal? S

Am I the only one who is a little offended that just because you own a pickup truck then you must be conservative, and if you own a Tesla you must be liberal? Seems to me that is more stereotyping than lot's of things that social justice warriors get outraged over.

King-Aaron 9y ago
You most certainly aren't alone.
throwaway613834 9y ago
> just because you own a pickup truck then you must be conservative Could you point us to whatever sentence in the article that made or even suggested this? I didn't see any part of the article stating that everyone who has a pickup truck is conservative.
- nodesocket 9y ago
  > For instance, if the number of sedans in a neighborhood is greater than the number of pickups, there is an 88 percent chance that the precinct will vote Democratic. Transpose those numbers to have more pickups than sedans and there is an 82 percent chance a precinct will vote Republican.
  - throwaway613834 9y ago
    How do you deduce "Everyone with a pickup truck is conservative/Republican." from the statement "If P(sedans) > P(pickups) then P(precinct voting Democrat) >= 88%." ?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    You know that phrase "machine learning is money laundering for bias"? You just learned what it means.
    - barry-cotter 9y ago
      You mean statistics are on average true?
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        Or that if you feed data which contains clear indicators of bias/prejudice into your ML system, it will discover those biases and prejudices and learn and incorporate them. Got a training set which dates to when banks redlined black people? Congratulations, the model just learned not to make loans to black people! And now it's "objective", because no humans are involved in making its decisions!
        barry-cotter 9y ago
        If you define an objective function based on some set of predictors, none of which contains a Black variable then it is not possible for your model to discriminate against Black people because it doesn’t know if anyone is black. Assuming, ridiculously conservatively that redlining ended in 1979 any dataset will have 37 non redlined years in it, 1980-2017. Given that the further away in time a datapoint is the less weight it’s given in predicting anything redlining will have bigger all impact on any model. Asian people in the US on average have higher credit scores than white people. This is not anti-white discrimination because white and Asian are not used to determine credit score, it’s based on on-time payment, capacity used, length of credit history, types of credit used and past credit applications. There are many wonderful MOOCs and textbooks on ML, AI and statistics. If you want to understand how statistical modelling works I can recommend the Georgia TechX MicroMasters in Analytics. Don’t listen to statistically illiterate journalists.
        pdkl95 9y ago
        > redlining ended Redlining is only one of the many racists housing practices that have existed and continue to exist today.l > in 1979 Have you even done any research on this topic? From a famous article[1] about the history of racism in housing: >> In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges of discrimination against its Countrywide unit. The following year, Wells Fargo settled its discrimination suit for more than $175 million. But the damage had been done. In 2009, half the properties in Baltimore whose owners had been granted loans by Wells Fargo between 2005 and 2008 were vacant; 71 percent of these properties were in predominantly black neighborhoods. > 37 non redlined years Those are also years of sub-standard schools, poor job prospects, and (in some cities) toxic levels of lead paint. Growing up in that kind of environment can limit your options severely. > it is not possible for your model to discriminate against Black people because it doesn’t know if anyone is black. I always like to assume ignorance over malice, so I will simply suggest that you should do a lot more research before making this kind of claim. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...
  - function_seven 9y ago
    That’s a description of reality. 88% of neighborhoods that had more sedans than pickups lean blue. I don’t see why that would be offensive? Seems in line with each group’s general culture.
chillingeffect 9y ago
You're right to feel snubbed. Thus type of.machine learning is externalized, automated prejudice. See also the gay detector.
- zimablue 9y ago
  You can't ban any statistical reasoning about humans because it's sometimes wrong. "We stopped testing the medicine because even though it cured 99% of cases those that weren't cured were offended by the possibility that someone might assume that it would cure them" Statistical reasoning becomes prejudice when you act on it in a way that is harmful to society or you overgeneralize it. If you try to ban it then you're just avoiding emotionally uncomfortable truths.
- a_imho 9y ago
  Thus type of.machine learning is externalized, automated prejudice. Succinct
cdancette 9y ago
That's just probabilities based on statistics.. you're more likely to be a conservative, that's all.
zaarn 9y ago
This isn't how statistics work. It's similar to how the distribution of height in men and women is different, ie, women tend to be smaller (IIRC), it has no bearing on the expression of the measures values on an individual. There is a probability that you are conservative if you have a pickup truck but this doesn't mean you are conservative if you own a pickup truck.

King-Aaron 9y ago

You most certainly aren't alone.

throwaway613834 9y ago

> just because you own a pickup truck then you must be conservative Could you point us to whatever sentence in the article that made or even suggested this? I didn't see any part of the article stating that everyone who has a pickup truck is conservative.

nodesocket 9y ago
> For instance, if the number of sedans in a neighborhood is greater than the number of pickups, there is an 88 percent chance that the precinct will vote Democratic. Transpose those numbers to have more pickups than sedans and there is an 82 percent chance a precinct will vote Republican.
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  How do you deduce "Everyone with a pickup truck is conservative/Republican." from the statement "If P(sedans) > P(pickups) then P(precinct voting Democrat) >= 88%." ?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  You know that phrase "machine learning is money laundering for bias"? You just learned what it means.
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    You mean statistics are on average true?
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      Or that if you feed data which contains clear indicators of bias/prejudice into your ML system, it will discover those biases and prejudices and learn and incorporate them. Got a training set which dates to when banks redlined black people? Congratulations, the model just learned not to make loans to black people! And now it's "objective", because no humans are involved in making its decisions!
      - barry-cotter 9y ago
        If you define an objective function based on some set of predictors, none of which contains a Black variable then it is not possible for your model to discriminate against Black people because it doesn’t know if anyone is black. Assuming, ridiculously conservatively that redlining ended in 1979 any dataset will have 37 non redlined years in it, 1980-2017. Given that the further away in time a datapoint is the less weight it’s given in predicting anything redlining will have bigger all impact on any model. Asian people in the US on average have higher credit scores than white people. This is not anti-white discrimination because white and Asian are not used to determine credit score, it’s based on on-time payment, capacity used, length of credit history, types of credit used and past credit applications. There are many wonderful MOOCs and textbooks on ML, AI and statistics. If you want to understand how statistical modelling works I can recommend the Georgia TechX MicroMasters in Analytics. Don’t listen to statistically illiterate journalists.
        pdkl95 9y ago
        > redlining ended Redlining is only one of the many racists housing practices that have existed and continue to exist today.l > in 1979 Have you even done any research on this topic? From a famous article[1] about the history of racism in housing: >> In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges of discrimination against its Countrywide unit. The following year, Wells Fargo settled its discrimination suit for more than $175 million. But the damage had been done. In 2009, half the properties in Baltimore whose owners had been granted loans by Wells Fargo between 2005 and 2008 were vacant; 71 percent of these properties were in predominantly black neighborhoods. > 37 non redlined years Those are also years of sub-standard schools, poor job prospects, and (in some cities) toxic levels of lead paint. Growing up in that kind of environment can limit your options severely. > it is not possible for your model to discriminate against Black people because it doesn’t know if anyone is black. I always like to assume ignorance over malice, so I will simply suggest that you should do a lot more research before making this kind of claim. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...
- function_seven 9y ago
  That’s a description of reality. 88% of neighborhoods that had more sedans than pickups lean blue. I don’t see why that would be offensive? Seems in line with each group’s general culture.

chillingeffect 9y ago

You're right to feel snubbed. Thus type of.machine learning is externalized, automated prejudice. See also the gay detector.

zimablue 9y ago
You can't ban any statistical reasoning about humans because it's sometimes wrong. "We stopped testing the medicine because even though it cured 99% of cases those that weren't cured were offended by the possibility that someone might assume that it would cure them" Statistical reasoning becomes prejudice when you act on it in a way that is harmful to society or you overgeneralize it. If you try to ban it then you're just avoiding emotionally uncomfortable truths.
a_imho 9y ago
Thus type of.machine learning is externalized, automated prejudice. Succinct

cdancette 9y ago

That's just probabilities based on statistics.. you're more likely to be a conservative, that's all.

zaarn 9y ago

This isn't how statistics work. It's similar to how the distribution of height in men and women is different, ie, women tend to be smaller (IIRC), it has no bearing on the expression of the measures values on an individual. There is a probability that you are conservative if you have a pickup truck but this doesn't mean you are conservative if you own a pickup truck.