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A huge portion of these seem to be "I don't like the fact that this heuristic is strongly predictive", not any sort of complaint about the implementation or use

A huge portion of these seem to be "I don't like the fact that this heuristic is strongly predictive", not any sort of complaint about the implementation or use of the prediction engine.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Fairness and predictivity are different concerns. Many of my interests, hobbies, and behaviors are strongly predictive of poor public speaking skills, but it would still be very unfair if my company installed an AI saying I can't give conference speeches because I'll probably do poorly.
- elisbce 6y ago
  1) Why is unfair? If there is one speech, but 3 candidates. And the AI predicted based on past performances, why is it unfair? (It is a bad decision for you, or the AI could be making a poor decision based on data/algorithm limitations, but it is not unfair, the AI doesn't favor anyone outside of the data it's given). 2) AI doesn't make the decision that you can't give speeches. AI gives truthful predictions assuming the data is truthful. But it is your boss who uses the results to make that decision. The ethics part is on your boss using what data/algo to make such a prediction to determine who should go. Why would you blame the AI instead of the boss?
curiousllama 6y ago
Yea, I mean there's a lot of strongly-predictive heuristics that are unethical to act on, though (e.g., "if applicant is pregnant, then she will take maternity leave, and therefore be less productive employee year 1, so don't hire" <- obviously immoral). Why shouldn't automated decision-making processes be held to the same ethical standards as manual ones?
- archi42 6y ago
  That's an important point, no matter if the algorithm is some trained neural net or a ruleset written by hand. I'm often under the impression that moral standards are easier to ignore if "the computer says that X". E.g. we have to accept the fact that woman is much more likely to take maternety leave, and essentially an AI is okay to be aware of that, too. It even has to, else it finds another commom factor (eg womans chess club) - but it should be able to wilfully ignore this finding because using it against an applicant is immoral.
lxe 6y ago
Exactly, but it's still a problem. Using existing trends that we should be changing to continue perpetuating them through prediction is what's at the heart of the issue.

A huge portion of these seem to be "I don't like the fact that this heuristic is strongly predictive", not any sort of complaint about the implementation or use of the prediction engine.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Fairness and predictivity are different concerns. Many of my interests, hobbies, and behaviors are strongly predictive of poor public speaking skills, but it would still be very unfair if my company installed an AI saying I can't give conference speeches because I'll probably do poorly.

elisbce 6y ago
1) Why is unfair? If there is one speech, but 3 candidates. And the AI predicted based on past performances, why is it unfair? (It is a bad decision for you, or the AI could be making a poor decision based on data/algorithm limitations, but it is not unfair, the AI doesn't favor anyone outside of the data it's given). 2) AI doesn't make the decision that you can't give speeches. AI gives truthful predictions assuming the data is truthful. But it is your boss who uses the results to make that decision. The ethics part is on your boss using what data/algo to make such a prediction to determine who should go. Why would you blame the AI instead of the boss?

curiousllama 6y ago

Yea, I mean there's a lot of strongly-predictive heuristics that are unethical to act on, though (e.g., "if applicant is pregnant, then she will take maternity leave, and therefore be less productive employee year 1, so don't hire" <- obviously immoral). Why shouldn't automated decision-making processes be held to the same ethical standards as manual ones?

archi42 6y ago
That's an important point, no matter if the algorithm is some trained neural net or a ruleset written by hand. I'm often under the impression that moral standards are easier to ignore if "the computer says that X". E.g. we have to accept the fact that woman is much more likely to take maternety leave, and essentially an AI is okay to be aware of that, too. It even has to, else it finds another commom factor (eg womans chess club) - but it should be able to wilfully ignore this finding because using it against an applicant is immoral.

lxe 6y ago

Exactly, but it's still a problem. Using existing trends that we should be changing to continue perpetuating them through prediction is what's at the heart of the issue.