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> (fairness) how to define it Not even a paragraph in and I see problems with this. Seems somebody bias has already gotten in their own way. This is the first

> (fairness) how to define it Not even a paragraph in and I see problems with this. Seems somebody bias has already gotten in their own way. This is the first step - redefine the meanings of words to fit your agenda. I could be wrong about the intent. But when you can redefine fairness the you can make it fair to take from one person and give to another. Or deny one person and Grant access to another based on things that don't matter. Also. The attack on human bias is totally silly. It's a key trait that had made us and other species successful. Without these biases we might pick the wrong fruit eat it and die. We might try to cuddel into a cave with bears in the winter. Our entire existence and reasoning skills is based off bases. Also. Never in my life have a seen ripe or unripe bannans and described them by their color. Is this a education problem? But even if I had there is nothing wrong with pointing out when something is not atypical. Besides if I plan on eating bananas in a few days I might want the "green" ones. Or if I was going to make a yummy smoothie the "brown" ones are the ones I want. Also bananas are a bad analogy for what they were getting at. Every banana has the potential to be green, then yellow, then brown. So none of these states are out of the ordinary. I don't need or want to be unconsciously retrained by ML. I think we are going to need laws against big cooperations using their power and tech to change socal constructs. It's not their place and we can never be sure they are doing it for good or even the outcome will be good for human kind. It's also a power that can be abused. We already have internal documents comming from Google suggesting swaying public opinion on on political canadates. And this type of research is exactly where you would start.

majos 8y ago
What? This isn't about redefining fairness, but defining it in the first place. Seriously, try to come up with a rigorous technical definition of what a fair decision process means. It's not easy. But we need such a definition (or definitions). It mattered less in the past because humans made all the decisions so we could fall back on fuzzy qualitative notions. We can't do that when algorithms make decisions.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  It's worse than that. Often fairness is a process, not a formula or metric.
stfwn 8y ago
> I think we are going to need laws against big cooperations using their power and tech to change socal constructs. Maintaining such constructs is as much a use of power as changing them is. It’s completely impossible to outlaw a corporation’s or any agent’s influence on society. ‘Society’ as we think of it (the nation, a community, bureaucracy, you name it) itself is a massive construct with tons of subjectivity attached. > I don't need or want to be unconsciously retrained by ML. If it’s a thing in your world, which it probably already is, it will have an influence on you. This type of research is how we make that visible. IMHO the social sciences are a good thing.
- smhost 8y ago
  > It’s completely impossible to outlaw a corporation’s or any agent’s influence on society. Honestly. We would have to ban all marketing and mass media. The only other solution I can think of is to subject all relevant industries to some democratic process, and I don't think anybody really wants that.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    I am down for a ban on all marketing and mass media :p But really, think there is a difference in trying to get me to buy your microwave and a small group of people attempting to retrain the masses on social issues -- according to their views -- "for the good of everybody". It's really hard for me to understand how anybody can think it would be good for any small group, no matter how much good they think they are doing, or how pure their intent is to have the power to change the masses, little alone be allowed to use such power. Things are complicated one wrong step and these people can break society.
    - smhost 8y ago
      Ultimately I agree with you, I don't think this is a good thing. But I just don't see a way that we as a society can realistically address the problem of a few powerful entities having a disproportionate influence on mass culture, because that has already been happening long before google was around. You're basically wanting to eliminate large-scale propaganda, social engineering, and eliminate the culture industry. That's not going to happen.
lumberjack 8y ago
>The attack on human bias is totally silly. Ugly short men in a corporate environments have to swim against the tide because everyone instinctively thinks less of them. Tall handsome men get automatic adoration. Prejudice is irrational and harmful. Bill Gates and Bezos are too short to be CEOs. The world is filled with irrational biases that do more harm than good.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

majos 8y ago

What? This isn't about redefining fairness, but defining it in the first place. Seriously, try to come up with a rigorous technical definition of what a fair decision process means. It's not easy. But we need such a definition (or definitions). It mattered less in the past because humans made all the decisions so we could fall back on fuzzy qualitative notions. We can't do that when algorithms make decisions.

humanrebar 8y ago
It's worse than that. Often fairness is a process, not a formula or metric.

stfwn 8y ago

> I think we are going to need laws against big cooperations using their power and tech to change socal constructs. Maintaining such constructs is as much a use of power as changing them is. It’s completely impossible to outlaw a corporation’s or any agent’s influence on society. ‘Society’ as we think of it (the nation, a community, bureaucracy, you name it) itself is a massive construct with tons of subjectivity attached. > I don't need or want to be unconsciously retrained by ML. If it’s a thing in your world, which it probably already is, it will have an influence on you. This type of research is how we make that visible. IMHO the social sciences are a good thing.

smhost 8y ago
> It’s completely impossible to outlaw a corporation’s or any agent’s influence on society. Honestly. We would have to ban all marketing and mass media. The only other solution I can think of is to subject all relevant industries to some democratic process, and I don't think anybody really wants that.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  I am down for a ban on all marketing and mass media :p But really, think there is a difference in trying to get me to buy your microwave and a small group of people attempting to retrain the masses on social issues -- according to their views -- "for the good of everybody". It's really hard for me to understand how anybody can think it would be good for any small group, no matter how much good they think they are doing, or how pure their intent is to have the power to change the masses, little alone be allowed to use such power. Things are complicated one wrong step and these people can break society.
  - smhost 8y ago
    Ultimately I agree with you, I don't think this is a good thing. But I just don't see a way that we as a society can realistically address the problem of a few powerful entities having a disproportionate influence on mass culture, because that has already been happening long before google was around. You're basically wanting to eliminate large-scale propaganda, social engineering, and eliminate the culture industry. That's not going to happen.

lumberjack 8y ago

>The attack on human bias is totally silly. Ugly short men in a corporate environments have to swim against the tide because everyone instinctively thinks less of them. Tall handsome men get automatic adoration. Prejudice is irrational and harmful. Bill Gates and Bezos are too short to be CEOs. The world is filled with irrational biases that do more harm than good.

deleted 8y ago
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