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The point is that the algorithm wasn't using skin color as an input, (directly, at least) and got those outputs anyways. Would you prefer an outcome where half
by DuskStar 7y ago
The point is that the algorithm wasn't using skin color as an input, (directly, at least) and got those outputs anyways.
Would you prefer an outcome where half of the white men were also marked as high risk, but with 16 reoffending? (to give the low risk pools the same recidivism rate) Now instead of unjustly marking ten black men and two white men as high risk, you're doing so for thirty-four white men. Is that somehow less discriminatory?
- loopz 7y agoJust because another option is worse doesn't make an unjust and repressive kind of social profiling better. The entire premise of using prediction may be found to have dire consequences, so the entire premise is dubious. There is no binary choice in this matter, but there needs to be accountability.
- DuskStar 7y agoAnd if the decision isn't based on race, but on things that happen to correlate with it? Whether your father was present, for instance - since that's a major predictive factor for all sorts of life outcomes even when controlling for race. Should that not be used just because certain groups are more likely to come from single-parent households than others? Because in the end, the choices are "accept that there will be a correlation between the outputs and race", "use no system that produces estimates or imperfect outputs", or "explicitly discriminate based on race to remove the race-result correlation". That's it.