23 ms·

But does the reason matter when the result is discrimination against people through no fault of their own?

by mwcampbell 6y ago

raxxorrax 6y ago
Please discriminate against me too if that means facial recognition isn't working.
- krisoft 6y ago
  That’s not necessarily what you want. “not working” can manifest itself in false positive matches too. Cue “all X people look the same” stupidness. And the truth is, the danger zone is when the algo is somewhat ok, but a few percents worse on the discriminated group. If it were obviously stupidly bad (like for example any two black people are a positive match according to it) then people will disregard it. But if its just slightly bad thats harder to notice and suddenly your loan/car rental is rejected because the security system says you look too much like a specific known fraudster. And of course they wont even tell you that thats the reason, because security.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I worked in imaging for medical diagnostic support and dark complexions are just plainly more difficult to analyse because of restricted illumination times and limited contrast. Sensors got much better in recent years though. The indications in question were extremely rare for black people on the other hand. Another use case was the detection of Vitiligo, which is significantly more easy on black people. There was a great demand for therapies because patients are stigmatized for different reasons, especially in Africa because the symptoms can look similar to some deadly diseases. There is a lot of discrimination in imaging, but it doesn't have to do with race and more with the creation of binary images. As for facial recognition. I see some use cases for convenience, but it would be far more effective to disallow widespread application because of the numerous unsolved problems. So I see the move from IBM positively, even if they continue their work. In the end I believe face reg to be possible without bias, but I don't have these propped up security needs.
- lvh 6y ago
  "Doesn't work" doesn't just mean it won't identify you. It can also mean it _falsely_ identifies you, because it's bad at identifying you. If your a member of Congress who is also a person of color, it will do that at twice the rate of your white colleagues. [0] [0]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28 https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-te...

But does the reason matter when the result is discrimination against people through no fault of their own?

raxxorrax 6y ago

Please discriminate against me too if that means facial recognition isn't working.

krisoft 6y ago
That’s not necessarily what you want. “not working” can manifest itself in false positive matches too. Cue “all X people look the same” stupidness. And the truth is, the danger zone is when the algo is somewhat ok, but a few percents worse on the discriminated group. If it were obviously stupidly bad (like for example any two black people are a positive match according to it) then people will disregard it. But if its just slightly bad thats harder to notice and suddenly your loan/car rental is rejected because the security system says you look too much like a specific known fraudster. And of course they wont even tell you that thats the reason, because security.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I worked in imaging for medical diagnostic support and dark complexions are just plainly more difficult to analyse because of restricted illumination times and limited contrast. Sensors got much better in recent years though. The indications in question were extremely rare for black people on the other hand. Another use case was the detection of Vitiligo, which is significantly more easy on black people. There was a great demand for therapies because patients are stigmatized for different reasons, especially in Africa because the symptoms can look similar to some deadly diseases. There is a lot of discrimination in imaging, but it doesn't have to do with race and more with the creation of binary images. As for facial recognition. I see some use cases for convenience, but it would be far more effective to disallow widespread application because of the numerous unsolved problems. So I see the move from IBM positively, even if they continue their work. In the end I believe face reg to be possible without bias, but I don't have these propped up security needs.
lvh 6y ago
"Doesn't work" doesn't just mean it won't identify you. It can also mean it _falsely_ identifies you, because it's bad at identifying you. If your a member of Congress who is also a person of color, it will do that at twice the rate of your white colleagues. [0] [0]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazons-face-recognition-falsely-matched-28 https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-te...