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Hmm I didn't get that from the article at all. It felt to me like the author was showing a relatively straightforward explanation of building a system that does

Hmm I didn't get that from the article at all. It felt to me like the author was showing a relatively straightforward explanation of building a system that does not intuitively have racial bias, and then demonstrating that in practice it does anyway, which is kind of surprising.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tedivm 8y ago
There was a great discussion at Google Next about this, and it's something my company also thinks a lot about. There are so many ways that bias can creep into algorithms, and it's really important to validate your algorithms against this. As one non-racial example there was a pneumonia detection model that got some pretty (at least amongst people interested in radiology and deep learning) where the model was detecting the metal badge the hospital was using when taking scans (so every xray from this hospital had a similar graphic on it). This hospital had a higher pneumonia rate as it generally had older people going to it, and because of this the model started giving everyone who went to that hospital a higher likelihood of having pneumonia. So essentially it picked up on the age based bias of the hospital itself. This is an issue in other types of medical data as well. There have been multiple studies that show doctors are less likely to successfully diagnose a heart attack in women than in men, and that doctors will also underestimate how much pain a black man is in compared to any other category. Those biases end up in the data itself, so if you naively train your models against that data they too will make similar mistakes.
rundell1x 8y ago
It's only surprising if you think racism does not have a basis on reality.
- tedivm 8y ago
  The fact that this comment was [dead] but someone felt the need to unbury it says a hell of a lot about the state of this site.
  - rundell1x 8y ago
    If you feel like I'm wrong how about you explain further instead of complaining that my comment wasn't removed? I wish this site would force you to comment before you downvote or flag.
    - tedivm 8y ago
      All you said is that racism has a basis in reality- you didn't give anything specific to argue against. Why don't you let us all know what issues you think get labelled as "racism" that have a basis in reality? Tell us what racist things you believe if you're looking or people to argue against it.
      - rundell1x 8y ago
        I didn't want to explain and I won't bother with it because I know this site is full of people like you and I'm not going to write a few paragraphs of text just to see it all removed in a matter of minutes. But if you feel I am wrong, or if you feel I should be more specific, you should've said that instead of just wishing my comment never existed. EDIT: aaaand a mod collapsed the entire thread. So predictable :-)
        tedivm 8y ago
        I don't think there's any issue with wishing racism- and the racists who push it- shouldn't exist.
        striking 8y ago
        >I won't bother with it because I know this site is full of people like you >a mod collapsed the entire thread. So predictable Imagine that, a mod collapsing a thread that nothing good will come of. Maybe you had a point somewhere, but you definitely don't now.
        sctb 8y ago
        It was a troll comment: high inflammation and low (no?) information. If you continue we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- swingline-747 8y ago
  An unfortunate fact: there are infinitely many kinds and degrees of bias hard-coded in human nature. They cannot be suddenly wished, willed, educated or technologied away, only imperfectly, temporarily overcome with conscious, uphill vigilance. Anyone whom says they're impartial, unbiased, justice is blind or racism is over.. is lying to you and themselves because such statements, maybe laudible goals, but are unobtainium virtues.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tedivm 8y ago

There was a great discussion at Google Next about this, and it's something my company also thinks a lot about. There are so many ways that bias can creep into algorithms, and it's really important to validate your algorithms against this. As one non-racial example there was a pneumonia detection model that got some pretty (at least amongst people interested in radiology and deep learning) where the model was detecting the metal badge the hospital was using when taking scans (so every xray from this hospital had a similar graphic on it). This hospital had a higher pneumonia rate as it generally had older people going to it, and because of this the model started giving everyone who went to that hospital a higher likelihood of having pneumonia. So essentially it picked up on the age based bias of the hospital itself. This is an issue in other types of medical data as well. There have been multiple studies that show doctors are less likely to successfully diagnose a heart attack in women than in men, and that doctors will also underestimate how much pain a black man is in compared to any other category. Those biases end up in the data itself, so if you naively train your models against that data they too will make similar mistakes.

rundell1x 8y ago

It's only surprising if you think racism does not have a basis on reality.

tedivm 8y ago
The fact that this comment was [dead] but someone felt the need to unbury it says a hell of a lot about the state of this site.
- rundell1x 8y ago
  If you feel like I'm wrong how about you explain further instead of complaining that my comment wasn't removed? I wish this site would force you to comment before you downvote or flag.
  - tedivm 8y ago
    All you said is that racism has a basis in reality- you didn't give anything specific to argue against. Why don't you let us all know what issues you think get labelled as "racism" that have a basis in reality? Tell us what racist things you believe if you're looking or people to argue against it.
    - rundell1x 8y ago
      I didn't want to explain and I won't bother with it because I know this site is full of people like you and I'm not going to write a few paragraphs of text just to see it all removed in a matter of minutes. But if you feel I am wrong, or if you feel I should be more specific, you should've said that instead of just wishing my comment never existed. EDIT: aaaand a mod collapsed the entire thread. So predictable :-)
      - tedivm 8y ago
        I don't think there's any issue with wishing racism- and the racists who push it- shouldn't exist.
      - striking 8y ago
        >I won't bother with it because I know this site is full of people like you >a mod collapsed the entire thread. So predictable Imagine that, a mod collapsing a thread that nothing good will come of. Maybe you had a point somewhere, but you definitely don't now.
      - sctb 8y ago
        It was a troll comment: high inflammation and low (no?) information. If you continue we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
swingline-747 8y ago
An unfortunate fact: there are infinitely many kinds and degrees of bias hard-coded in human nature. They cannot be suddenly wished, willed, educated or technologied away, only imperfectly, temporarily overcome with conscious, uphill vigilance. Anyone whom says they're impartial, unbiased, justice is blind or racism is over.. is lying to you and themselves because such statements, maybe laudible goals, but are unobtainium virtues.