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Before throwing around accusations of political correctness you should consider that questions like that are not new, they have just received more attention now

by Sol- 8y ago

Before throwing around accusations of political correctness you should consider that questions like that are not new, they have just received more attention now that algorithms decide much more things in life than in the past. For instance, US law has "disparate impact" provisions at least since the civil rights act (a time which was probably not dominated by political correctness), which requires outcomes to be not too different between races or other groups. (Though disparate impact is not a particularly good metric of fairness and doesn't seem to be used so much in algorithmic fairness nowadays.)

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Disparate impact applies to actions which are unjustified. For instance imagine I decide to never hire somebody who likes rap music. That would have a disparate impact on a certain group of people, yet since it probably has nothing to do with the job I'm hiring for, it would be unjustified and could be argued to be a form of disparate impact discrimination. By contrast imagine for a labor job I decide to never hire anybody who can't left and carry at least 120 pounds. That would also have a disparate effect negatively impacting a protected class, but it would be justified. Machine learning takes all data and draws conclusions that map strongly against the data and ideally generalize to new scenarios. So long as the behavior trying to be predicted for was relevant to the task at hand, using the recommendations of such algorithms would certainly be justified and thus not fall under disparate impact. In a nutshell disparate impact is not to ensure equality of result, but to prevent discrimination by proxy. And discrimination not being of the form 'I'm not going to hire women because they can't lift as much as men' but of the form 'I'm not going to hire women because I don't like working with women.'
marcoperaza 8y ago
The disparate impact doctrine is quite controversial, especially the ever more aggressive applications of it. It has led to some unfortunate rules. For example, it’s (generally and presumptively) illegal to hire based on intelligence tests, but seems to be okay (in practice) to hire only from elite universities that select students largely on the basis of SAT scores, which correlate very strongly with IQ.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The disparate impact doctrine is extremely controversial, especially the ever more aggressive applications of it. What's mostly controversial is fictitious applications of it. > For example, it’s (generally and presumptively) illegal to hire based on intelligence tests, but totally okay to hire only from elite universities that select students largely on the basis of SAT scores, which correlate very strongly with IQ. No, it's not. Both policies have differential impact, and both have the same requirement of a tight connection to job performance under disparate impact analysis. The main relevant differences are: (1) There is an widespread cargo cult belief, including among many people involved in hiring, that IQ tests are categorically illegal in hiring, so people avoid them in part based on a prohibition that does not actually exist, and (2) The same false belief above also is common among workers, so they are particularly likely to seek legal counsel if they experience an adverse hiring decision and were subjected to an IQ test; at which point they are likely to discover the actual disparate impact rule. People who have adverse results and were, even overtly, subjected to another criteria which might invoke disparate impact analysis are less likely to seek a remedy. (3) IQ tests are overt and the failed applicant is unlikely to be ignorant of the standard used; places that filter strictly by elite universities rarely disclose that, they just require a resume and apply opaque criteria to it. Even if those criteria (such as an elite university filter) would provoke disparate impact analysis, it is difficult for an injured party to know what criteria were used (and to prove what criteria were used even if they know or suspect that one was used that would be subject to disparate impact analysis.)
dragonwriter 8y ago
> For instance, US law has "disparate impact" provisions at least since the civil rights act (a time which was probably not dominated by political correctness), which requires outcomes to be not too different between races or other groups. That's not what “disparate impact” requires; it requires that acts producing differential outcomes for protected classes are demonstrably tightly aligned with a legitimate interest (e.g., in hiring, criteria with such an impact must be demonstrably tightly tied to job performance.) Differences, even extremely wide differences, in outcomes associated with protected class are still legal, if they have a demonstrably legitimate basis.

by Sol- 8y ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Disparate impact applies to actions which are unjustified. For instance imagine I decide to never hire somebody who likes rap music. That would have a disparate impact on a certain group of people, yet since it probably has nothing to do with the job I'm hiring for, it would be unjustified and could be argued to be a form of disparate impact discrimination. By contrast imagine for a labor job I decide to never hire anybody who can't left and carry at least 120 pounds. That would also have a disparate effect negatively impacting a protected class, but it would be justified. Machine learning takes all data and draws conclusions that map strongly against the data and ideally generalize to new scenarios. So long as the behavior trying to be predicted for was relevant to the task at hand, using the recommendations of such algorithms would certainly be justified and thus not fall under disparate impact. In a nutshell disparate impact is not to ensure equality of result, but to prevent discrimination by proxy. And discrimination not being of the form 'I'm not going to hire women because they can't lift as much as men' but of the form 'I'm not going to hire women because I don't like working with women.'

marcoperaza 8y ago

The disparate impact doctrine is quite controversial, especially the ever more aggressive applications of it. It has led to some unfortunate rules. For example, it’s (generally and presumptively) illegal to hire based on intelligence tests, but seems to be okay (in practice) to hire only from elite universities that select students largely on the basis of SAT scores, which correlate very strongly with IQ.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> The disparate impact doctrine is extremely controversial, especially the ever more aggressive applications of it. What's mostly controversial is fictitious applications of it. > For example, it’s (generally and presumptively) illegal to hire based on intelligence tests, but totally okay to hire only from elite universities that select students largely on the basis of SAT scores, which correlate very strongly with IQ. No, it's not. Both policies have differential impact, and both have the same requirement of a tight connection to job performance under disparate impact analysis. The main relevant differences are: (1) There is an widespread cargo cult belief, including among many people involved in hiring, that IQ tests are categorically illegal in hiring, so people avoid them in part based on a prohibition that does not actually exist, and (2) The same false belief above also is common among workers, so they are particularly likely to seek legal counsel if they experience an adverse hiring decision and were subjected to an IQ test; at which point they are likely to discover the actual disparate impact rule. People who have adverse results and were, even overtly, subjected to another criteria which might invoke disparate impact analysis are less likely to seek a remedy. (3) IQ tests are overt and the failed applicant is unlikely to be ignorant of the standard used; places that filter strictly by elite universities rarely disclose that, they just require a resume and apply opaque criteria to it. Even if those criteria (such as an elite university filter) would provoke disparate impact analysis, it is difficult for an injured party to know what criteria were used (and to prove what criteria were used even if they know or suspect that one was used that would be subject to disparate impact analysis.)

dragonwriter 8y ago

> For instance, US law has "disparate impact" provisions at least since the civil rights act (a time which was probably not dominated by political correctness), which requires outcomes to be not too different between races or other groups. That's not what “disparate impact” requires; it requires that acts producing differential outcomes for protected classes are demonstrably tightly aligned with a legitimate interest (e.g., in hiring, criteria with such an impact must be demonstrably tightly tied to job performance.) Differences, even extremely wide differences, in outcomes associated with protected class are still legal, if they have a demonstrably legitimate basis.