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I don't think "it's a data problem" is inherently used to hand-wave away the problem. I think it's used to locate the problem in the area where its most readily

by darawk 5y ago

I don't think "it's a data problem" is inherently used to hand-wave away the problem. I think it's used to locate the problem in the area where its most readily addressed. Designing algorithms to debias your data is hard, over-sampling under-represented groups is easier. I do think you're right that sometimes people use it that way, but that doesn't mean we should make up false narratives about biased models, either. It just means we should work on de-biasing the data, and also developing algorithms to help mitigate the learning of features we don't want weighted.

mjburgess 5y ago
You are right that there are no algorithms which capture semantics, and therefore none which can be constructed not to introduce bias. In that sense it is a "data solution", but it is not a data problem. > de-biasing the data The issue isnt statistical bias. The issue is semantic: occurrence doesnt capture meaning. Negative terms and racial terms can co-occur more frequently in some text (eg., a biography of MLK) without the remedy being to "rebalance them with positive terms".