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This in my opinion is a point that brings a lot of well-needed nuance to this issue. All or at least many of these facts or assumptions are all relatively reaso

This in my opinion is a point that brings a lot of well-needed nuance to this issue. All or at least many of these facts or assumptions are all relatively reasonable or well-studied, that past criminal records and traumatic upbringings can lead to crime, but when put together under the dubious question of is the person a criminal can be greater than the sum of their parts. A lot of people come from broken homes or experience trauma and never commit a(nother) crime. The fact that these assumptions are standard practice has only legitimized taking a black-box algorithm at its word. It's not all just bias, but this kind of system certainly can incentivize it when making seemingly authoritative predictions.

vkou 5y ago
The nuance doesn't matter, though. If you tell a cop that person A is 1% likely to be guilty of a crime, and person B is 3% likely to be guilty of a crime, they are going to focus their efforts on person B - despite both people being more likely than not, to be innocent. When being harassed by police is itself sufficient to turn a person into a criminal, or ruin their life, you end up in a situation where everyone is doing what is 'reasonable', but leading to outcomes that are both unfair, and even negative overall, to society.
- easterncalculus 5y ago
  > When being harassed by police is itself sufficient to turn a person into a criminal, or ruin their life, you end up in a situation where everyone is doing what is 'reasonable', but leading to outcomes that are both unfair, and even negative overall, to society. I agree. I just think that when critics read articles like the one in this post, they might walk away with the idea that all of these assumptions are fine and that critics of these systems are being alarmist. They might see these metrics as reasonable considering they reflect trends in actual criminals, but not understand that they are being used to predict criminal behavior, which like you mentioned with the two almost definitely innocent people is not the same thing.

vkou 5y ago

The nuance doesn't matter, though. If you tell a cop that person A is 1% likely to be guilty of a crime, and person B is 3% likely to be guilty of a crime, they are going to focus their efforts on person B - despite both people being more likely than not, to be innocent. When being harassed by police is itself sufficient to turn a person into a criminal, or ruin their life, you end up in a situation where everyone is doing what is 'reasonable', but leading to outcomes that are both unfair, and even negative overall, to society.

easterncalculus 5y ago
> When being harassed by police is itself sufficient to turn a person into a criminal, or ruin their life, you end up in a situation where everyone is doing what is 'reasonable', but leading to outcomes that are both unfair, and even negative overall, to society. I agree. I just think that when critics read articles like the one in this post, they might walk away with the idea that all of these assumptions are fine and that critics of these systems are being alarmist. They might see these metrics as reasonable considering they reflect trends in actual criminals, but not understand that they are being used to predict criminal behavior, which like you mentioned with the two almost definitely innocent people is not the same thing.