5 ms·

There will be a big hurdle of political correctness when the machine spits out answers that don't conform to establishment dogma -- e.g. https://techcrunch.com/

There will be a big hurdle of political correctness when the machine spits out answers that don't conform to establishment dogma -- e.g. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/02/machine-learning-and-human-bias-an-uneasy-pair/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/02/machine-learning-and-human... Chris Stucchio writes about this in depth: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/alien_intelligences_and_discriminatory_algorithms.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/alien_intelligences_...

wavefunction 9y ago
The TechCrunch story seems like a misapplication of machine learning. Even when an individual is alleged to have committed a crime in the US, they enjoy the presumption of innocence. Texting someone that the police are watching them based solely on their associations seems both intentionally creepy and un-Constitutional. I suppose this is the Chicago PD though. Given their operation of "Black Sites" in contravention of the Constitution they apparently don't care too much for the Rule of Law. Your second link is quite fascinating though.
- mc32 9y ago
  Unfortunately, social media has revived the witch hunt. People are presumed guilty till proven innocent, within the public domain. So while this is less likely to become prevalent in criminal cases, this sets up a dual system. In the public sphere you can be affected in numerous deleterious ways because there is no presumption of innocence in the public sphere. Even if you're not on social media. You can be mistakenly doxxed and suffer the consequences. We will need to come to terms with the implications of both these distinct phenomena which can result in injustice.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Just because it’s new to you, doesn’t mean that moral panics somehow didn’t exist before the internet. More importantly as with the case of sexual harassment and assault, the internet can offer a platform that doesn’t necessarily require panic to talk about basic morality.
    - jerf 9y ago
      Of course they existed. It's why we have the centuries-old term "witch hunt". The important thing is not that they are unheard of, but that they are back, after a rather long hiatus in the West. And the worst thing about the witch hunts to my mind is not that they are happening; it is the increasing amount of the population that sees them as a good thing. As long as they are targeted at the right people, of course, but the standards used for "right people" are growing quickly, too.
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        A hiatus? Really? ‘80’s: The Satanic Panic ‘90’s: Crack and Rap ‘00’s: Video Games ‘10’s: OMGZ Teh Internet!
        jerf 9y ago
        I lived through all of that. It was not continuous like it is now. It was intermittent. If the media had not been ginning them up for the temporal equivalent of "page views" they wouldn't have happened at all. Now "the people" can generate them on their own. (The media still runs along behind fanning the flames, but they're working to keep up rather than leading it now.) There has been a fundamental change in how they work now.
        QAPereo 9y ago
        That’s essentially the same argument which was levied against the Gutenberg press, and the home telephone, the crossbow, and virtually all significant advances which served to empower more people at the expense of hierarchy.
        RickHull 9y ago
        I don't think jerf is saying that the increased prevalence of witch hunts is an argument levied against the internet. I'm pretty sure jerf is an enthusiastic supporter of the internet. Nonetheless, the increased prevalence of witch hunts which is enabled by the internet is lamentable and worth addressing.
matt4077 9y ago
Those issues aren't different, morally, than good old-fashioned racial profiling, or really any other discriminatory use of stereotypes. If you're cheering for guilt by association to make a comeback just because the evil establishment thinks it's a bad idea, I'm at a loss of words. Any other fundamental freedoms you'd like to abolish because smart people happened to think they are good ideas? Presumption of innocence? Habeas corpus? The 5th amendment? Suffrage?
- RickHull 9y ago
  > If you're cheering for guilt by association to make a comeback just because the evil establishment thinks it's a bad idea, I'm at a loss of words. I'm not cheering for anything. I'm pointing out that machines may have a distasteful view of the world and that this will be a stumbling block for using them effectively. > Any other fundamental freedoms you'd like to abolish because smart people happened to think they are good ideas? Presumption of innocence? Habeas corpus? The 5th amendment? Suffrage? I'd appreciate it if you could tone down the hysterical moral outrage, particularly when aimed in my direction.
  - gowld 9y ago
    You can't use terms like "big hurdle of political correctness" and "establishment dogma" and then pretend you didn't start the "hysterical moral outrage"
    - RickHull 9y ago
      Really? That just seems like a dispassionate accounting of facts. There are such things as political correctness and establishment dogma, and these things constrain large scale social programs. I don't see the hysteria or moral outrage as such.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    My outrage isn't directed at your moral failings,which are unfortunately all too common, but at your intellectual failures. You are misrepresenting the status quo when you're insinuating that some "establishment" conspiracy will be suppressing the usefulness of violating fundamental rights, such as assumption of innocence, in their quest to defend "political correctness". This is obviously wrong. Such rights, and others like privacy or the right to a fair trial, only make sense under the assumption that their violation would in some ways benefit law enforcement. Otherwise there'd be no need to protect them. While the argument that, for example, "torture doesn't work" is sometimes made, it is always secondary to "our civilisation is better than that, and it is strong enough to accept a (small) hit in effectiveness in the defence of fundamental rights". So when you believe you've stumbled onto some greater truth, and that the world needs to hear some tough talk of realism, you've simply missed the essential message of enlightenment, and are reverting to 16th-century morals.

wavefunction 9y ago

The TechCrunch story seems like a misapplication of machine learning. Even when an individual is alleged to have committed a crime in the US, they enjoy the presumption of innocence. Texting someone that the police are watching them based solely on their associations seems both intentionally creepy and un-Constitutional. I suppose this is the Chicago PD though. Given their operation of "Black Sites" in contravention of the Constitution they apparently don't care too much for the Rule of Law. Your second link is quite fascinating though.

mc32 9y ago
Unfortunately, social media has revived the witch hunt. People are presumed guilty till proven innocent, within the public domain. So while this is less likely to become prevalent in criminal cases, this sets up a dual system. In the public sphere you can be affected in numerous deleterious ways because there is no presumption of innocence in the public sphere. Even if you're not on social media. You can be mistakenly doxxed and suffer the consequences. We will need to come to terms with the implications of both these distinct phenomena which can result in injustice.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Just because it’s new to you, doesn’t mean that moral panics somehow didn’t exist before the internet. More importantly as with the case of sexual harassment and assault, the internet can offer a platform that doesn’t necessarily require panic to talk about basic morality.
  - jerf 9y ago
    Of course they existed. It's why we have the centuries-old term "witch hunt". The important thing is not that they are unheard of, but that they are back, after a rather long hiatus in the West. And the worst thing about the witch hunts to my mind is not that they are happening; it is the increasing amount of the population that sees them as a good thing. As long as they are targeted at the right people, of course, but the standards used for "right people" are growing quickly, too.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      A hiatus? Really? ‘80’s: The Satanic Panic ‘90’s: Crack and Rap ‘00’s: Video Games ‘10’s: OMGZ Teh Internet!
      - jerf 9y ago
        I lived through all of that. It was not continuous like it is now. It was intermittent. If the media had not been ginning them up for the temporal equivalent of "page views" they wouldn't have happened at all. Now "the people" can generate them on their own. (The media still runs along behind fanning the flames, but they're working to keep up rather than leading it now.) There has been a fundamental change in how they work now.
        QAPereo 9y ago
        That’s essentially the same argument which was levied against the Gutenberg press, and the home telephone, the crossbow, and virtually all significant advances which served to empower more people at the expense of hierarchy.
        RickHull 9y ago
        I don't think jerf is saying that the increased prevalence of witch hunts is an argument levied against the internet. I'm pretty sure jerf is an enthusiastic supporter of the internet. Nonetheless, the increased prevalence of witch hunts which is enabled by the internet is lamentable and worth addressing.

matt4077 9y ago

Those issues aren't different, morally, than good old-fashioned racial profiling, or really any other discriminatory use of stereotypes. If you're cheering for guilt by association to make a comeback just because the evil establishment thinks it's a bad idea, I'm at a loss of words. Any other fundamental freedoms you'd like to abolish because smart people happened to think they are good ideas? Presumption of innocence? Habeas corpus? The 5th amendment? Suffrage?

RickHull 9y ago
> If you're cheering for guilt by association to make a comeback just because the evil establishment thinks it's a bad idea, I'm at a loss of words. I'm not cheering for anything. I'm pointing out that machines may have a distasteful view of the world and that this will be a stumbling block for using them effectively. > Any other fundamental freedoms you'd like to abolish because smart people happened to think they are good ideas? Presumption of innocence? Habeas corpus? The 5th amendment? Suffrage? I'd appreciate it if you could tone down the hysterical moral outrage, particularly when aimed in my direction.
- gowld 9y ago
  You can't use terms like "big hurdle of political correctness" and "establishment dogma" and then pretend you didn't start the "hysterical moral outrage"
  - RickHull 9y ago
    Really? That just seems like a dispassionate accounting of facts. There are such things as political correctness and establishment dogma, and these things constrain large scale social programs. I don't see the hysteria or moral outrage as such.
- matt4077 9y ago
  My outrage isn't directed at your moral failings,which are unfortunately all too common, but at your intellectual failures. You are misrepresenting the status quo when you're insinuating that some "establishment" conspiracy will be suppressing the usefulness of violating fundamental rights, such as assumption of innocence, in their quest to defend "political correctness". This is obviously wrong. Such rights, and others like privacy or the right to a fair trial, only make sense under the assumption that their violation would in some ways benefit law enforcement. Otherwise there'd be no need to protect them. While the argument that, for example, "torture doesn't work" is sometimes made, it is always secondary to "our civilisation is better than that, and it is strong enough to accept a (small) hit in effectiveness in the defence of fundamental rights". So when you believe you've stumbled onto some greater truth, and that the world needs to hear some tough talk of realism, you've simply missed the essential message of enlightenment, and are reverting to 16th-century morals.