5 ms·

To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a l

To me the issue is not discrimination but rather representation. I will give you a concrete example. Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there, yet we had data/deals with US, Europe and Asia. As a result our algorithms will likely not help Latin America and Latino Americans as much. This then perpetuates marginalization because it could lead to worse health outcomes for Latinos. Why the dimension of race and not other dimensions? It is a real dimension with cultural and medical significance. Cancer presents differently for different races for example. When you have large pseudo monopolies it is important to have diverse groups of people running them to avoid effects like this that can make marginalization worse. Another classic example is voice recognition and accents. By not having more Spanish speakers at a company, if your company makes a voice recognition product it is easy to have blind spots. Your product may fail for those with an accent, and you won’t notice or think to measure along those dimensions. I agree, however, that strictly proportional representation is not important. However promoting diversity is important and when you have numbers like 3 or 7 percent it’s easy to end up with large, important sub teams with no representation for historically marginalized subgroups. And this can lead to worse products, especially when looked at from the point of view of marginalized subgroups. The main point of the article is that it is pretty sketchy to be hiding these numbers

ralusek 8y ago
The example you gave is a diversity of skills, and that diversity of skills was actually a requirement for your business. If the inclusion of individuals possessing those additional skills (ability to speak Spanish, ability to network effectively in a given foreign country/culture) happens to map on to a racial or ethnic diversity, great, but that's not what's being advocated for here. This also brings up an interesting point of contention. The diversity dance has 2 arguments at odds with themselves. Claim 1: All populations of people are inherently equivalent and should therefore have proportional representations in all things. Claim 2: Diversity is a boon because populations are inherently unique and provide a unique set of characteristics to the table. Pick one. You cannot make both of those claims simultaneously. You are advocating in favor of Claim 2, which is fine, but what if the position in question doesn't actually benefit from a diverse set of skills? What if it's a low level circuit designer that tends to favor a particular skillset and personality type? Is it not possible that attributes more commonly represented in a certain population might be overrepresented in sectors that require those characteristics? In contrast, if you advocate instead for Claim 1, then there should be no discernible advantage to diverse hiring, it's just that a failure to do so would be indicative of bias.
- dontreact 8y ago
  I don't know anyone who believes in Claim 1 as you've presented it. There is an alternate version that I do believe "All populations of people are inherently valuable and therefore should not be left behind by advancements in technology" The examples I gave were both cases where it was not obvious at all to predict that the skills would be needed. For example, while the low level circuit designer probably won't benefit from cultural and racial awareness, he may not always be a low level circuit designer in the company. He may rise in the company and start making decisions about how/where/which circuits are built. And at some point having cultural and racial awareness would be a benefit.
  - ralusek 8y ago
    All populations are inherently valuable, to whom? Every business values every population intrinsically? How do you decide how valuable they are? Do you need to hire as many Maori from New Zealand and as many Inuit from Alaska as their world populations would dictate, or are their intrinsic values allowed to differ in any capacity?
    - dontreact 8y ago
      Let me rephrase Individuals are valuable regardless of group memberships. Therefore it makes sense to avoid leaving large groups of people behind, regardless of which group it is.
refurb 8y ago
Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there Isn't that more diversity of experience versus diversity of racial makeup? You could have a white guy who grew up in Latin America provide you with the insights. A Latino who grew up in the US might have absolutely nothing to contribute.
- dontreact 8y ago
  The point is that without diversity, even awareness of these problems can be missing. Obviously once you understand what the skill/experience gap is, you can go out and try to fill it. But a team lacking in diversity will also end up with these sorts of blind spots. Latin Americans can (and did :) ) notice this gap and now it is beginning to be filled.
  - refurb 8y ago
    But my point is that it's diversity of experience/knowledge, not racial diversity that solves those problems.
    - dontreact 8y ago
      My point is not that the best way to solve these problems is through racial diversity. My point is that they inevitably crop up due a lack of awareness when you do not have diversity.
      - refurb 8y ago
        Then we disagree. I'd much rather filter based on diversity of thought/experience/knowledge if I'm looking to cover all my gaps, then base it on race where there is a chance you'll end up with group think because they all have similar thoughts/experience/knowledge.
        8y ago
haberman 8y ago
I agree that we all have blind spots and that diversity in decision-makers can help correct these. If this principle was applied consistently across any dimension where such blind spots are likely to exist, I would be on board. However when some axes of diversity are elevated over others, based not on likeliness of blind spots but rather on unrelated grievances ("historically marginalized subgroups"), the whole exercise takes on a character of social activism. Social activism is important, but has blind spots of its own, and the culture of activism these days seems increasingly insistent on not recognizing them.
- dontreact 8y ago
  I think gender, race, class, and sexual orientation are probably the most important dimensions. I gave very specific reasons why race is important in my field of medicine, and I don't know why you think I am highlighting it as an important dimension because of historical marginalization. What are other ones that should be as elevated?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - haberman 8y ago
    I think I drew that conclusion because you mentioned marginalization four times. I think political orientation leads to lots of blind spots. If it is important that businesses have representation of their user-base, I think diversity of political opinion is a natural axis to consider.
    - dontreact 8y ago
      I think I agree with this. But I don’t think you need proportional representation, only representation. I think the percentage of people who vote republican is probably well north of 10% for most of GAFA, and if it’s not it’s worth looking into why.
byproxy 8y ago
When you say "Latino", do you mean someone who actually hails from Latin America? Because I'm Latino from the United States and I'd probably be just as lost when it comes to dealing with Latin America as a non-Latino from the United States.
- dontreact 8y ago
  Yes, I’m in the same boat. But I think you’d be a lot more likely to notice that there was something missing.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
> Cancer presents differently for different races for example. Ok, but ... you've been talking about Latino as if it is a race. Does the word Latino describe a race or a culture?
- dontreact 8y ago
  That’s a complicated question I don’t have a good answer for. There is definitely a racial component to it though.
  - nec4b 8y ago
    And which race would Latino represent?
    - dontreact 8y ago
      If you're Latino you are much much more likely to be mestizo. Which basically means it's a confusing mix of Spanish, indigenous american, and African. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo And I'm not sure it's easy to tell to what degree/how much of a mixture you are.
      - nec4b 8y ago
        Judging by [0], the whites are most prevalent non mixed ethnicity in South America and if you also consider that Mestizos and Mulatos are half white that also means that means that large majority of the population is white to some degree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_America#Racial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_America#...
        dontreact 8y ago
        Two things 1) if the first table is self identified data I would strongly expect it to underrepresent how many people are mixed. Unless you have gotten genetic testing, it’s hard to know like I mentioned. And there is social pressure to identify as white. 2) Even then, whites are still pretty much a minority in most countries, especially the ones that have more significant immigration to the US.
kkhire 8y ago
hammer on nail. I don't know why the demand for diversity in consumer & people oriented businesses upsets so many people. It's simply good strategy to hire a diverse workforce so your products/services can spread to all types of markets.
belorn 8y ago
Diversity in medical training data is important, through it is much more complex than getting "US, Europe, Asia and Latin America". A EU citizen in the south will have complete different set of environment to a citizen of the far north. Using climate zone classification, EU has both Temperate (mesothermal) climate and on the opposite end Polar and alpine (montane) climates. One place where the sun never goes up for part of the year, and an other where people go to beaches for vacations in the sun. Medicine that involve D-vitamin, sleep, cancer risks and a lot more is greatly effected by the latitude, which is part of the combination that is genes and environment. In the end you need a multidimensional matrix with everything from environment to genes, such as ethnic groups, gender, climate, culture and so on. If you are doing something which is similar to scientific studies then there is also an error margin in the data collection, such as in ancestry, and the error rate differ from country to country. Treating EU as a single group is plain terrible from a representation perspective. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/K%C3%B6ppen-Geiger_Climate_Classification_Map.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/K%C3%B6p...

ralusek 8y ago

The example you gave is a diversity of skills, and that diversity of skills was actually a requirement for your business. If the inclusion of individuals possessing those additional skills (ability to speak Spanish, ability to network effectively in a given foreign country/culture) happens to map on to a racial or ethnic diversity, great, but that's not what's being advocated for here. This also brings up an interesting point of contention. The diversity dance has 2 arguments at odds with themselves. Claim 1: All populations of people are inherently equivalent and should therefore have proportional representations in all things. Claim 2: Diversity is a boon because populations are inherently unique and provide a unique set of characteristics to the table. Pick one. You cannot make both of those claims simultaneously. You are advocating in favor of Claim 2, which is fine, but what if the position in question doesn't actually benefit from a diverse set of skills? What if it's a low level circuit designer that tends to favor a particular skillset and personality type? Is it not possible that attributes more commonly represented in a certain population might be overrepresented in sectors that require those characteristics? In contrast, if you advocate instead for Claim 1, then there should be no discernible advantage to diverse hiring, it's just that a failure to do so would be indicative of bias.

dontreact 8y ago
I don't know anyone who believes in Claim 1 as you've presented it. There is an alternate version that I do believe "All populations of people are inherently valuable and therefore should not be left behind by advancements in technology" The examples I gave were both cases where it was not obvious at all to predict that the skills would be needed. For example, while the low level circuit designer probably won't benefit from cultural and racial awareness, he may not always be a low level circuit designer in the company. He may rise in the company and start making decisions about how/where/which circuits are built. And at some point having cultural and racial awareness would be a benefit.
- ralusek 8y ago
  All populations are inherently valuable, to whom? Every business values every population intrinsically? How do you decide how valuable they are? Do you need to hire as many Maori from New Zealand and as many Inuit from Alaska as their world populations would dictate, or are their intrinsic values allowed to differ in any capacity?
  - dontreact 8y ago
    Let me rephrase Individuals are valuable regardless of group memberships. Therefore it makes sense to avoid leaving large groups of people behind, regardless of which group it is.

refurb 8y ago

Our team (working in medicine) had very few Latinos for a long time. As a result of this we completely avoided gathering training data from Latin America because no one was well versed in how to conduct business there Isn't that more diversity of experience versus diversity of racial makeup? You could have a white guy who grew up in Latin America provide you with the insights. A Latino who grew up in the US might have absolutely nothing to contribute.

dontreact 8y ago
The point is that without diversity, even awareness of these problems can be missing. Obviously once you understand what the skill/experience gap is, you can go out and try to fill it. But a team lacking in diversity will also end up with these sorts of blind spots. Latin Americans can (and did :) ) notice this gap and now it is beginning to be filled.
- refurb 8y ago
  But my point is that it's diversity of experience/knowledge, not racial diversity that solves those problems.
  - dontreact 8y ago
    My point is not that the best way to solve these problems is through racial diversity. My point is that they inevitably crop up due a lack of awareness when you do not have diversity.
    - refurb 8y ago
      Then we disagree. I'd much rather filter based on diversity of thought/experience/knowledge if I'm looking to cover all my gaps, then base it on race where there is a chance you'll end up with group think because they all have similar thoughts/experience/knowledge.
      - 8y ago

haberman 8y ago

I agree that we all have blind spots and that diversity in decision-makers can help correct these. If this principle was applied consistently across any dimension where such blind spots are likely to exist, I would be on board. However when some axes of diversity are elevated over others, based not on likeliness of blind spots but rather on unrelated grievances ("historically marginalized subgroups"), the whole exercise takes on a character of social activism. Social activism is important, but has blind spots of its own, and the culture of activism these days seems increasingly insistent on not recognizing them.

dontreact 8y ago
I think gender, race, class, and sexual orientation are probably the most important dimensions. I gave very specific reasons why race is important in my field of medicine, and I don't know why you think I am highlighting it as an important dimension because of historical marginalization. What are other ones that should be as elevated?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- haberman 8y ago
  I think I drew that conclusion because you mentioned marginalization four times. I think political orientation leads to lots of blind spots. If it is important that businesses have representation of their user-base, I think diversity of political opinion is a natural axis to consider.
  - dontreact 8y ago
    I think I agree with this. But I don’t think you need proportional representation, only representation. I think the percentage of people who vote republican is probably well north of 10% for most of GAFA, and if it’s not it’s worth looking into why.

byproxy 8y ago

When you say "Latino", do you mean someone who actually hails from Latin America? Because I'm Latino from the United States and I'd probably be just as lost when it comes to dealing with Latin America as a non-Latino from the United States.

dontreact 8y ago
Yes, I’m in the same boat. But I think you’d be a lot more likely to notice that there was something missing.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

> Cancer presents differently for different races for example. Ok, but ... you've been talking about Latino as if it is a race. Does the word Latino describe a race or a culture?

dontreact 8y ago
That’s a complicated question I don’t have a good answer for. There is definitely a racial component to it though.
- nec4b 8y ago
  And which race would Latino represent?
  - dontreact 8y ago
    If you're Latino you are much much more likely to be mestizo. Which basically means it's a confusing mix of Spanish, indigenous american, and African. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo And I'm not sure it's easy to tell to what degree/how much of a mixture you are.
    - nec4b 8y ago
      Judging by [0], the whites are most prevalent non mixed ethnicity in South America and if you also consider that Mestizos and Mulatos are half white that also means that means that large majority of the population is white to some degree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_America#Racial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_America#...
      - dontreact 8y ago
        Two things 1) if the first table is self identified data I would strongly expect it to underrepresent how many people are mixed. Unless you have gotten genetic testing, it’s hard to know like I mentioned. And there is social pressure to identify as white. 2) Even then, whites are still pretty much a minority in most countries, especially the ones that have more significant immigration to the US.

kkhire 8y ago

hammer on nail. I don't know why the demand for diversity in consumer & people oriented businesses upsets so many people. It's simply good strategy to hire a diverse workforce so your products/services can spread to all types of markets.

belorn 8y ago

Diversity in medical training data is important, through it is much more complex than getting "US, Europe, Asia and Latin America". A EU citizen in the south will have complete different set of environment to a citizen of the far north. Using climate zone classification, EU has both Temperate (mesothermal) climate and on the opposite end Polar and alpine (montane) climates. One place where the sun never goes up for part of the year, and an other where people go to beaches for vacations in the sun. Medicine that involve D-vitamin, sleep, cancer risks and a lot more is greatly effected by the latitude, which is part of the combination that is genes and environment. In the end you need a multidimensional matrix with everything from environment to genes, such as ethnic groups, gender, climate, culture and so on. If you are doing something which is similar to scientific studies then there is also an error margin in the data collection, such as in ancestry, and the error rate differ from country to country. Treating EU as a single group is plain terrible from a representation perspective. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/K%C3%B6ppen-Geiger_Climate_Classification_Map.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/K%C3%B6p...