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I hear you... But what if they have a reasonably accurate model that tested well (say 75%). Once day, their researchers decide to test how accurate the model i

by pcurve 8y ago

I hear you... But what if they have a reasonably accurate model that tested well (say 75%). Once day, their researchers decide to test how accurate the model is by setting real time flags, but take no action. And let's say, it turns out, of 100 people, 75 people did end up taking their life. What would you propose they do?

lobotryas 8y ago
Nothing, because Facebook should not be in the business of making these decisions. For sone folks, like me and the GO, there are no “buts” about it.
imgabe 8y ago
There are any number of measures we could take that would prevent deaths. We could lock people in a cage and monitor them 24/7. That would keep them alive. Should we do it? # of deaths reduced is not the sole factor we should use to determine whether a particular course of action is good
- CM30 8y ago
  Agreed with this. In fact, I feel a lot of the issues society has with privacy and freedom of speech right now come from how it seems to be willing to trade virtually all freedom for the illusion of 'safety'. A free society is also often a risky society, but the rewards of freedom outweight said risks.
austincheney 8y ago
I would have them either enter the mental health and public safety industries or I would have them throw the algorithm away.
bjt2n3904 8y ago
Say there's a car manufacturer that makes a car. It's a reasonably safe car, but sometimes people speed in it. Without really telling anyone, they install a webcam and point it at the driver to see whether they might speed on a certain day, based on facial expression and skin color. Why those? Just a weird hunch! They find that the person actually did speed. (Turns out, they didn't really tell anyone that all your driving data was uploaded to their servers, too!) The problem is two fold. First, they shouldn't have been collecting this data on their users in the first place. The manufactures job is to build a car, not ensure that the car is being used responsibly. This is simply an impossible task to charge anyone with, and the implications are frightening. Second, I'm not a believer in using algorithms to predict behavior. Too much black box "mangle the numbers until it works". You could make an argument that there's a correlation between skin color and speeding. You might even be able to make pretty charts, but I think this is simply bad science. You make it sound like this model would actually continue to work at 75% perpetually. I think that it's far more likely it worked this one test, and performance would trend sharply downwards. However it makes this decision, I think it's about as absurd and wrong as the crazy example above. On the other side of the coin, people are putting too much trust in magic algorithms they don't properly understand, and are far too complacent about egregious invasion of privacy.
roenxi 8y ago
Being able to do something is completely different from it being an advisable thing to do, and this is a can of worms that would be better left untouched. For example, if Facebook can identify suicide risks in Ohio, then they will be pressured to identify gays in Saudi Arabia and Muslims in Xinjiang. Or weed smokers, underage drinkers, and a bunch of everyone-does-it-but-nobody-cares crimes, where the punishments are technically quite harsh. The only effective standard that differentiates suicide from the others is "what Facebook's executive thinks is morally acceptable". It is certain that Facebooks executive are not the right people to arbitrate moral issues, not matter how black and white. There best layer of protection we have here is Facebook taking an official position of "we don't judge, we just sell ads". It isn't perfect and it isn't necessarily logically consistent, but if Facebook sees itself as an arbiter then sooner or later it may well disagree with something we do and take action to stop us doing it.

by pcurve 8y ago

lobotryas 8y ago

Nothing, because Facebook should not be in the business of making these decisions. For sone folks, like me and the GO, there are no “buts” about it.

imgabe 8y ago

There are any number of measures we could take that would prevent deaths. We could lock people in a cage and monitor them 24/7. That would keep them alive. Should we do it? # of deaths reduced is not the sole factor we should use to determine whether a particular course of action is good

CM30 8y ago
Agreed with this. In fact, I feel a lot of the issues society has with privacy and freedom of speech right now come from how it seems to be willing to trade virtually all freedom for the illusion of 'safety'. A free society is also often a risky society, but the rewards of freedom outweight said risks.

austincheney 8y ago

I would have them either enter the mental health and public safety industries or I would have them throw the algorithm away.

bjt2n3904 8y ago

Say there's a car manufacturer that makes a car. It's a reasonably safe car, but sometimes people speed in it. Without really telling anyone, they install a webcam and point it at the driver to see whether they might speed on a certain day, based on facial expression and skin color. Why those? Just a weird hunch! They find that the person actually did speed. (Turns out, they didn't really tell anyone that all your driving data was uploaded to their servers, too!) The problem is two fold. First, they shouldn't have been collecting this data on their users in the first place. The manufactures job is to build a car, not ensure that the car is being used responsibly. This is simply an impossible task to charge anyone with, and the implications are frightening. Second, I'm not a believer in using algorithms to predict behavior. Too much black box "mangle the numbers until it works". You could make an argument that there's a correlation between skin color and speeding. You might even be able to make pretty charts, but I think this is simply bad science. You make it sound like this model would actually continue to work at 75% perpetually. I think that it's far more likely it worked this one test, and performance would trend sharply downwards. However it makes this decision, I think it's about as absurd and wrong as the crazy example above. On the other side of the coin, people are putting too much trust in magic algorithms they don't properly understand, and are far too complacent about egregious invasion of privacy.

roenxi 8y ago

Being able to do something is completely different from it being an advisable thing to do, and this is a can of worms that would be better left untouched. For example, if Facebook can identify suicide risks in Ohio, then they will be pressured to identify gays in Saudi Arabia and Muslims in Xinjiang. Or weed smokers, underage drinkers, and a bunch of everyone-does-it-but-nobody-cares crimes, where the punishments are technically quite harsh. The only effective standard that differentiates suicide from the others is "what Facebook's executive thinks is morally acceptable". It is certain that Facebooks executive are not the right people to arbitrate moral issues, not matter how black and white. There best layer of protection we have here is Facebook taking an official position of "we don't judge, we just sell ads". It isn't perfect and it isn't necessarily logically consistent, but if Facebook sees itself as an arbiter then sooner or later it may well disagree with something we do and take action to stop us doing it.