> How would you feel if an algorithm decided whether or not you should be charged with a crime? Whether an algorithm decided whether or not you had cancer? I th

> How would you feel if an algorithm decided whether or not you should be charged with a crime? Whether an algorithm decided whether or not you had cancer? I think for many of these cases, it’s well known that the algorithms do much better than people. I was just reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Talking to Strangers. He tells the story of a judge in Chicago who decided whether to keep detainees or release them on bail. He liked to look into the eyes of the detainee to decide whether he would skip bail. It turned out that information wasn’t nearly as valuable as other information that you can derive from machine learning, algorithms and so forth. Accuracy increased greatly with the algorithm. I feel like this glosses over a lot of evidence that shows that using algorithms to determine guilt and innocence in the criminal justice system is incredibly fraught. https://www.wired.com/2017/04/courts-using-ai-sentence-criminals-must-stop-now/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/courts-using-ai-sentence-crimi... https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-the-compas-recidivism-algorithm https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-the-compa... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/19/algorithms-were-supposed-make-virginia-judges-more-fair-what-actually-happened-was-far-more-complicated/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/19/algorithm...