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Am I the only one who reads this and gets the takeaway of: "Journalist realizes he was on the wrong side of defending a special interest group against the great
by existencebox 8y ago
Am I the only one who reads this and gets the takeaway of: "Journalist realizes he was on the wrong side of defending a special interest group against the greater good via lack of due diligence, tries to backpedal and paint himself in a positive light via 'learnings'"
I think I'd be less cynical if they had done less to bury the lede deep in the midst of the article, and not once mention "due diligence," let alone as the crux or conclusion that I took as the real Root Cause here.
To me this isn't a story about AI. This is "just another" story of how readily public decision making can be swayed by biased special interests and an uninformed media/electorate.
The author should be praised for revisiting the topic, being upfront about their change in stance and trying to close the loop on it; but I think I am seeing the problem space from a very different angle than they are.
- DevX101 8y ago>Journalist realizes he was on the wrong side of defending a special interest group Author of the article is Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab. I wish he had spoken to the original creators of the algorithm (down the street) before co-authoring the article. But I give him credit for this kind-of a mea culpa w/ additional context.
- lbarrow 8y agoYea, it really seems like the author originally just flipped out at the word "algorithm" and is now backpeddling after realizing he was pretty uniformed.
- jackconnor 8y agoYou nailed it, though I'm happy he wrote the piece at all despite it being a secret "mea culpa" piece.
- frandroid 8y agoWhat's secret about this?
- the_crocodile 8y agoAgree. This brings increased attention and news to an issue that would have been forgotten. It speaks to Joi's integrity that he wanted to correct his mistake publicly.
- SilasX 8y agoI'm having trouble untangling the story from reading it. Who was the special interest group here, what did they object to, and what was the misunderstanding about the algorithm that the journalist harbored?
- ForHackernews 8y agoWealthy parents (who likely drive their kids to school) objected to changes in their children's school start times made as a result of trying to optimize bus schedules.
- philipodonnell 8y agoYeah but why? Is there more traffic at those times? Does it conflict with other activities that the parents plan to do?
- metildaa 8y agoIf school starts later, then they may be dropping their kid off at school at 9am or 9:30am rather than at 8am. This makes it hard to get iinto the office in a reasonable time. Its also not quite the same problem for those of us who ride the bus, parents aren't trapped schleping kids on the bus. I'm surprised Boston Schools don't use the local mass transit system for middle & high schoolers, we've been pushing for that change in Seattle for years (all highschool students get ORCA cards finally). Why needlessly duplicate service?
- azeotropic 8y agoThey do have MBTA passes for middle/high school students to take mass transit (https://www.mbta.com/fares/reduced/student-charliecards https://www.mbta.com/fares/reduced/student-charliecards)
- irrational 8y agoAre you suggesting wealthy white kids should take public transportation?
- stevenwoo 8y agoYes, and I only read the first two pages because it made me a little ill how shabbily they came to their initial conclusion - anyone with an inkling of knowledge of the history of the USA and school bussing would have approached this more carefully.
- platz 8y agowhy do you assume the opposition came from uninformed people? Do you think they were not able to identify what is in their best interest?
- function_seven 8y agoParent didn’t say the opposition was uninformed. Rather, the media and the broader electorate was.
- platz 8y agook