8 ms·

I'm sorry, but this sounds absurd. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying implies that employers should hire people that are less qualified for a job j

by Aqua 8y ago

I'm sorry, but this sounds absurd. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying implies that employers should hire people that are less qualified for a job just because they belong to a group, members of which on average are more likely to be discriminated earlier in their lives than others? Engineer here, and no, blind hiring will not bake-in any biases, because that's exactly the problem this approach solves - it aims to hire the best candidates regardless of their race, origin, religion, accent and other irrelevant characteristics.

tomrod 8y ago
My first paragraph I tried very carefully to avoid normative/"should" statements. The identification of the issue is at hand. Consider Computer Science. Historically far fewer women go through the training for a variety of personal reasons and societal pressure. So, on the margin, blind/anonymous hiring ignores that upstream delta between females in population and skilled females in hiring pool. Whether this is desirable or not is not my point, only that this is "baked in bias" perpetuating down the line. It's noble to build a society where we value blindness on characteristics irrelevant to hiring. Doing it piecemeal can result in furthering these baked in biases. A better approach would be to split the skills validation (blind) from the move-forward decision (adhering to whatever inter-generational correction schema the society has decided upon) where the only pool of eligible move-forwards meet the established skills validation. In this way, you only get skilled candidates, and you can satisfy whatever other characteristics that need satisfaction.
- fizwhiz 8y ago
  We should all heavily invest in the pipeline problem through outreach and what not, but I'm genuinely curious: what happens if the underrepresented minorities don't make it past the blind skill validation?
  - tomrod 8y ago
    That's a great question, and one I don't have a great and proper solution for. My splitting suggestion above I consider better than blind-only, but it certainly is not bullet-proof.
    - fizwhiz 8y ago
      I ask because Github attempted this while organizing ElectronConf a year ago, but it turned out their blind submission review process[1] resulted in an all-male panel. Someone noticed and got upset[2], after which Github canned it. There was an HN discussion about it too[3]. Now we can speculate how many submissions were from people that don't identify as male (was it 50 or less%? Github hasn't released details to my knowledge). The issue though is that once the results (of what appears to be a fair process) didn't match the desired narrative, people screamed sexism and made mostly emotional arguments. You've mentioned an "inter-generational correction schema" elsewhere in the thread. In most institutions, this essentially gets instated as quotas which embitters the majority in the system (including the people they target to enable because it's assumed they had to get past a "lower bar"). [1] https://archive.is/8SsNp#selection-381.122-494.0 https://archive.is/8SsNp#selection-381.122-494.0 [2] http://archive.is/NrLqE http://archive.is/NrLqE [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
      - tomrod 8y ago
        Indeed, and I agree. I've tried to be careful from assuming specific norms, trying to think through the positive/observational aspects instead. Applying the selection quota to the hiring pool that passes skills would get around the "quota-implies-less-skilled" issue.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    At what point do we decide that a difference in culture may make some careers more or less attractive to a group on average than a different population, and that that is OK? What if it's a cultural difference that has negative effect on the population in question? Do you respect the difference, or try to change things so that those in said population who would prosper under different outlooks can do so? This is a serious question, and I genuinely don't have a good, general answer. I can see this line of thought being used to superficially validate any bias one cares to in a "that's just how things are" kind of manner, which helps no one. But we also have to acknowledge that differences will lead to, well, differences. How do we differentiate between negative and neutral causality?
    - fizwhiz 8y ago
      I think it's perfectly permissible for different cultures to value different careers; I believe the argument is that there shouldn't be any other imposed barriers (ex: due to discrimination) for them to re-calibrate their value system and have the option to pursue other things.
- Aqua 8y ago
  The way I see it is you're trying to solve this problem in the wrong place, just like you said, the real issue lies elsewhere and this is precisely where we should direct our efforts to fix it. If fewer women decide to pursue a technical career, then perhaps we should learn why and counteract. By implementing an artificial counter-bias you're merely hiding the real problem by obscuring the data, while the symptoms and root causes remain intact.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    A counter-bias on the conditional step could indeed assure a correction. Let's formalize it a bit, I think this helps clarify. Let A be the hiring propensity, B be job preparation (education, experience, what have you), and C be the "blinding factors" Helsinki is trying to address. As a model we would like the joint propensity for everyone to be normalized. In other words, P(A,B,C) would be about the same. The joint propensity P(A,B,C) would be expressed as P(A,B,C) = P(A | B,C) * P(B | C) * P(C) [0] Helsinki is making the first term, P(A | B,C) independent of their "blinding factors", or, in other words, P(A | B,C) = P(A | B).[1] The remaining terms P(B | C) and P(C) are unaffected. It is P(B|C) differential that many arguing for what I call non-autarky "social corrections" (we do something as a society). Since Helsinki's decision affects _only_ the conditional probability P(A| B,C), the other factors are still at play, and P(A,B,C) remains at issue. There is nothing that can be done by Helsinki's hiring department for P(B|C) in the short term -- people are dealt the hand they have, life isn't fair, and so on. Completely true. By blinding themselves, they set P(A|B) to be flat on C and no "equalization" of P(A,B,C) can be observed. A truly egalitarian society would have P(B|C) = P(B). However, we aren't there. C, what Helsinki blinds themselves to, matters for qualifying life experiences. The model that is being argued for by you and others I believe is formalized as a conditional independence model, namely that the propensity of hiring is independent of race, conditional on life preparation: P(A,C | B) = P(A|B) * P(C|B).[2] Note though: bias still persists: P(C|B) = P(B|C)*P(C)/P(B) -- we can't get away from that P(B|C) term in either model, and we know qualitatively that P(B|C) != P(B), hence why a correction can be positively argued for (rather than solely from emotion or duty). Anyhow, that's the model in mind, and I'm open to being wrong/corrected. Thoughts? -------------------- After thinking about it more, it seems that the ultimate goal of Helsinki is to make P(A|B,C) = P(A|B), not the latter model. -------------------- [0] Chained conditional probabilites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_rule_(probability) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_rule_(probability) [1] Independent variables definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theo... [2] Conditional independence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_independence
ianleeclark 8y ago
> Engineer here, and no, blind hiring will not bake-in any biases Yes, it will: if you're born to a well-off family, you'll go to better schools before college. Due to this, you'll have a better chance at succeeding in college, have more resources to delve deeper into your field of study, better manage studying abroad, &c. All of these factors will make your list of skills more attractive to employers. Compared to someone who was poor who went to worse schools, didn't study abroad, and couldn't afford to spend more time on their field of study due to having to work to pay for college. This will make your list of skills less attractive to an employer. Right out of the gate, there is a bias against people who grew up poor in the hiring process. > it aims to hire the best candidates regardless of their race, origin, religion, accent and other irrelevant characteristics. It does so by devaluing repressed classes of people. This is a societal cost to benefit businesses.
- klohto 8y ago
  The example you showed is absolutely wrong. Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. EDIT: I have missed the whole point of the parent comment.
  - ianleeclark 8y ago
    > That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. That expertise is a direct result of class. I feel like I've sufficiently explained how class-based biases will still slip through this system, so respond to it directly and tell me _how bias is not present_ in that system. > Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. I never said businesses ought do x, I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process which will produce negative outcomes for society.
    - klohto 8y ago
WhompingWindows 8y ago
Yeah, I don't get that approach either. Is the parent comment suggesting that employers need to assess the opportunities given to a particular applicant and then weight them accordingly? Like if they come from a poor/disadvantaged background and still have 90% the skills and experience of another candidate, well that's more impressive? How does the parent expect an interviewer to come up with these valuations of opportunity?
- Fomite 8y ago
  "Like if they come from a poor/disadvantaged background and still have 90% the skills and experience of another candidate, well that's more impressive" - Potentially, yes.
wehere1111 8y ago
the point is that current measures of 'best' skew heavily towards certain race, origin, and background
- Aqua 8y ago
  Implementing a counter-bias will not solve the problem but introduce artificial noise which will obscure data and hide the real issues.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by Aqua 8y ago

tomrod 8y ago

My first paragraph I tried very carefully to avoid normative/"should" statements. The identification of the issue is at hand. Consider Computer Science. Historically far fewer women go through the training for a variety of personal reasons and societal pressure. So, on the margin, blind/anonymous hiring ignores that upstream delta between females in population and skilled females in hiring pool. Whether this is desirable or not is not my point, only that this is "baked in bias" perpetuating down the line. It's noble to build a society where we value blindness on characteristics irrelevant to hiring. Doing it piecemeal can result in furthering these baked in biases. A better approach would be to split the skills validation (blind) from the move-forward decision (adhering to whatever inter-generational correction schema the society has decided upon) where the only pool of eligible move-forwards meet the established skills validation. In this way, you only get skilled candidates, and you can satisfy whatever other characteristics that need satisfaction.

fizwhiz 8y ago
We should all heavily invest in the pipeline problem through outreach and what not, but I'm genuinely curious: what happens if the underrepresented minorities don't make it past the blind skill validation?
- tomrod 8y ago
  That's a great question, and one I don't have a great and proper solution for. My splitting suggestion above I consider better than blind-only, but it certainly is not bullet-proof.
  - fizwhiz 8y ago
    I ask because Github attempted this while organizing ElectronConf a year ago, but it turned out their blind submission review process[1] resulted in an all-male panel. Someone noticed and got upset[2], after which Github canned it. There was an HN discussion about it too[3]. Now we can speculate how many submissions were from people that don't identify as male (was it 50 or less%? Github hasn't released details to my knowledge). The issue though is that once the results (of what appears to be a fair process) didn't match the desired narrative, people screamed sexism and made mostly emotional arguments. You've mentioned an "inter-generational correction schema" elsewhere in the thread. In most institutions, this essentially gets instated as quotas which embitters the majority in the system (including the people they target to enable because it's assumed they had to get past a "lower bar"). [1] https://archive.is/8SsNp#selection-381.122-494.0 https://archive.is/8SsNp#selection-381.122-494.0 [2] http://archive.is/NrLqE http://archive.is/NrLqE [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
    - tomrod 8y ago
      Indeed, and I agree. I've tried to be careful from assuming specific norms, trying to think through the positive/observational aspects instead. Applying the selection quota to the hiring pool that passes skills would get around the "quota-implies-less-skilled" issue.
- Baeocystin 8y ago
  At what point do we decide that a difference in culture may make some careers more or less attractive to a group on average than a different population, and that that is OK? What if it's a cultural difference that has negative effect on the population in question? Do you respect the difference, or try to change things so that those in said population who would prosper under different outlooks can do so? This is a serious question, and I genuinely don't have a good, general answer. I can see this line of thought being used to superficially validate any bias one cares to in a "that's just how things are" kind of manner, which helps no one. But we also have to acknowledge that differences will lead to, well, differences. How do we differentiate between negative and neutral causality?
  - fizwhiz 8y ago
    I think it's perfectly permissible for different cultures to value different careers; I believe the argument is that there shouldn't be any other imposed barriers (ex: due to discrimination) for them to re-calibrate their value system and have the option to pursue other things.
Aqua 8y ago
The way I see it is you're trying to solve this problem in the wrong place, just like you said, the real issue lies elsewhere and this is precisely where we should direct our efforts to fix it. If fewer women decide to pursue a technical career, then perhaps we should learn why and counteract. By implementing an artificial counter-bias you're merely hiding the real problem by obscuring the data, while the symptoms and root causes remain intact.
- tomrod 8y ago
  A counter-bias on the conditional step could indeed assure a correction. Let's formalize it a bit, I think this helps clarify. Let A be the hiring propensity, B be job preparation (education, experience, what have you), and C be the "blinding factors" Helsinki is trying to address. As a model we would like the joint propensity for everyone to be normalized. In other words, P(A,B,C) would be about the same. The joint propensity P(A,B,C) would be expressed as P(A,B,C) = P(A | B,C) * P(B | C) * P(C) [0] Helsinki is making the first term, P(A | B,C) independent of their "blinding factors", or, in other words, P(A | B,C) = P(A | B).[1] The remaining terms P(B | C) and P(C) are unaffected. It is P(B|C) differential that many arguing for what I call non-autarky "social corrections" (we do something as a society). Since Helsinki's decision affects _only_ the conditional probability P(A| B,C), the other factors are still at play, and P(A,B,C) remains at issue. There is nothing that can be done by Helsinki's hiring department for P(B|C) in the short term -- people are dealt the hand they have, life isn't fair, and so on. Completely true. By blinding themselves, they set P(A|B) to be flat on C and no "equalization" of P(A,B,C) can be observed. A truly egalitarian society would have P(B|C) = P(B). However, we aren't there. C, what Helsinki blinds themselves to, matters for qualifying life experiences. The model that is being argued for by you and others I believe is formalized as a conditional independence model, namely that the propensity of hiring is independent of race, conditional on life preparation: P(A,C | B) = P(A|B) * P(C|B).[2] Note though: bias still persists: P(C|B) = P(B|C)*P(C)/P(B) -- we can't get away from that P(B|C) term in either model, and we know qualitatively that P(B|C) != P(B), hence why a correction can be positively argued for (rather than solely from emotion or duty). Anyhow, that's the model in mind, and I'm open to being wrong/corrected. Thoughts? -------------------- After thinking about it more, it seems that the ultimate goal of Helsinki is to make P(A|B,C) = P(A|B), not the latter model. -------------------- [0] Chained conditional probabilites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_rule_(probability) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_rule_(probability) [1] Independent variables definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theo... [2] Conditional independence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_independence

ianleeclark 8y ago

> Engineer here, and no, blind hiring will not bake-in any biases Yes, it will: if you're born to a well-off family, you'll go to better schools before college. Due to this, you'll have a better chance at succeeding in college, have more resources to delve deeper into your field of study, better manage studying abroad, &c. All of these factors will make your list of skills more attractive to employers. Compared to someone who was poor who went to worse schools, didn't study abroad, and couldn't afford to spend more time on their field of study due to having to work to pay for college. This will make your list of skills less attractive to an employer. Right out of the gate, there is a bias against people who grew up poor in the hiring process. > it aims to hire the best candidates regardless of their race, origin, religion, accent and other irrelevant characteristics. It does so by devaluing repressed classes of people. This is a societal cost to benefit businesses.

klohto 8y ago
The example you showed is absolutely wrong. Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. EDIT: I have missed the whole point of the parent comment.
- ianleeclark 8y ago
  > That has nothing to do with class but with the general expertise of an individual. That expertise is a direct result of class. I feel like I've sufficiently explained how class-based biases will still slip through this system, so respond to it directly and tell me _how bias is not present_ in that system. > Based on it, the one from high class has more skills and more experience than the one from lower class. So of course, you will hire the one with more skills. I never said businesses ought do x, I just said that certain classes will be biased against in this attempt at a bias-less recruitment process which will produce negative outcomes for society.
  - klohto 8y ago

WhompingWindows 8y ago

Yeah, I don't get that approach either. Is the parent comment suggesting that employers need to assess the opportunities given to a particular applicant and then weight them accordingly? Like if they come from a poor/disadvantaged background and still have 90% the skills and experience of another candidate, well that's more impressive? How does the parent expect an interviewer to come up with these valuations of opportunity?

Fomite 8y ago
"Like if they come from a poor/disadvantaged background and still have 90% the skills and experience of another candidate, well that's more impressive" - Potentially, yes.

wehere1111 8y ago

the point is that current measures of 'best' skew heavily towards certain race, origin, and background

Aqua 8y ago
Implementing a counter-bias will not solve the problem but introduce artificial noise which will obscure data and hide the real issues.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]