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> People of color were disproportionately falsely matched in our test. They are trying to make this racially charged without giving enough information to verif

> People of color were disproportionately falsely matched in our test. They are trying to make this racially charged without giving enough information to verify their claims. If you use a dataset of mugshots, that's statistically going to have more data on people of color. If you have more data on people of color, it is more likely to match people of color. Claiming the algorithm is racist because your data is racist is inflammatory bullshit.

spamizbad 8y ago
How is stating a fact- it disproportionately matched people of color- somehow the same as claiming racism?
- hoschicz 8y ago
  The fact is irrelevant to the problem and there is no reason to mention it, if they want the debate to stay professional and not emotional. The whole racism angle of the article seems way too loaded for me.
rrego 8y ago
Pretty lousy argument. Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm
- andrewguenther 8y ago
  > Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. I actually did not know this. Thank you. I had conflated incarceration rate with inmate population. If anyone is curious for a source, see here: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.... > Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm I agree with this 100%. But they haven't provided enough information about their dataset to make this conclusion. If they provided enough information for someone to independently analyze the data and reproduce the experiment, I would flip immediately.
- Kalium 8y ago
  > Pretty lousy argument. Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. Personally, I would assume the mugshots are a random sample of a public corpus, and thus likely 35-40% people of color. Which is definitely skewed from the background population. I'm assuming the similarity of 40% is a coincidence. > Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm Is it? It sounds like it might be working exactly as it was set up and specified to work. I would call that the fault of the designers and specifiers, rather than the algorithm. It's a good algorithm. It fits its purpose well. Its purposes just happen to be completely evil.
ubernostrum 8y ago
Claiming the algorithm is racist because your data is racist is inflammatory bullshit. Unless the designers of the system are aware of and account for biases in the training data, the system will be biased and will be biased due to the actions of its designers. I don't see what's so hard to accept about that. It's literally the oldest problem in computing (going back to the "Pray Mr. Babbage, if we put into your machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out" days).
- andrewguenther 8y ago
  Is the claim that it is up to the system to detect bias in training data it is given?
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    My personal claim is it's up to the people creating and training the system to be aware of biases and to account for that in how they create and train the system. The problem, of course, is how woefully underprepared the average tech person is for realizing the existence of even extremely obvious biases, let alone more subtle and pernicious ones, and a tech culture in which people are lauded for being knee-jerk contrarians on topics like "does our society have a history of systemic racism".
BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
And the data is "racist" as well because...? This whole topic is racially charged because incarceration rates are a race issue and you are being disingenuous with your comment pretending the problem with facial recognition can somehow exist and be fixed in isolation.
- andrewguenther 8y ago
  If your data is disproportionate then you're more likely to get matches in the larger portion. The ACLU is claiming that Rekognition is racially biased, but their experiment could be setting them to get the result they want because their dataset is already biased. I'm not saying the topic isn't a race issue, I'm saying the ACLU isn't providing the data for someone to verify their results and is possibly making false claims that no one can verify.

spamizbad 8y ago

How is stating a fact- it disproportionately matched people of color- somehow the same as claiming racism?

hoschicz 8y ago
The fact is irrelevant to the problem and there is no reason to mention it, if they want the debate to stay professional and not emotional. The whole racism angle of the article seems way too loaded for me.

rrego 8y ago

Pretty lousy argument. Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm

andrewguenther 8y ago
> Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. I actually did not know this. Thank you. I had conflated incarceration rate with inmate population. If anyone is curious for a source, see here: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.... > Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm I agree with this 100%. But they haven't provided enough information about their dataset to make this conclusion. If they provided enough information for someone to independently analyze the data and reproduce the experiment, I would flip immediately.
Kalium 8y ago
> Pretty lousy argument. Firstly, the majority of inmates in the US are white (58%). I'd assume mug shot stats are similar, or at the very least not mostly black people. Personally, I would assume the mugshots are a random sample of a public corpus, and thus likely 35-40% people of color. Which is definitely skewed from the background population. I'm assuming the similarity of 40% is a coincidence. > Moreover, if a algorithm enforces bias to the detriment of inoccents, it's a bad algorithm Is it? It sounds like it might be working exactly as it was set up and specified to work. I would call that the fault of the designers and specifiers, rather than the algorithm. It's a good algorithm. It fits its purpose well. Its purposes just happen to be completely evil.

ubernostrum 8y ago

Claiming the algorithm is racist because your data is racist is inflammatory bullshit. Unless the designers of the system are aware of and account for biases in the training data, the system will be biased and will be biased due to the actions of its designers. I don't see what's so hard to accept about that. It's literally the oldest problem in computing (going back to the "Pray Mr. Babbage, if we put into your machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out" days).

andrewguenther 8y ago
Is the claim that it is up to the system to detect bias in training data it is given?
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  My personal claim is it's up to the people creating and training the system to be aware of biases and to account for that in how they create and train the system. The problem, of course, is how woefully underprepared the average tech person is for realizing the existence of even extremely obvious biases, let alone more subtle and pernicious ones, and a tech culture in which people are lauded for being knee-jerk contrarians on topics like "does our society have a history of systemic racism".

BigChiefSmokem 8y ago

And the data is "racist" as well because...? This whole topic is racially charged because incarceration rates are a race issue and you are being disingenuous with your comment pretending the problem with facial recognition can somehow exist and be fixed in isolation.

andrewguenther 8y ago
If your data is disproportionate then you're more likely to get matches in the larger portion. The ACLU is claiming that Rekognition is racially biased, but their experiment could be setting them to get the result they want because their dataset is already biased. I'm not saying the topic isn't a race issue, I'm saying the ACLU isn't providing the data for someone to verify their results and is possibly making false claims that no one can verify.