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That's great, but by doing so you are also inadvertently favoring, in your example, the people with black names. For example, Chinese people save on average, 50
by ceeplusplus 4y ago
That's great, but by doing so you are also inadvertently favoring, in your example, the people with black names. For example, Chinese people save on average, 50 times more than Americans according to the Fed [1]. That would mean they would generally be overrepresented in loan approvals because they have a better balance sheet. Does that necessarily mean that Americans are discriminated against in the approval process? No.
My question to you is: is an algorithm that takes no racial inputs (name, race, address, etc) yet still produces disproportionate results biased or racist? I say no.
[1] https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/es/08/ES0819.pdf https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/es/08...
- Jerrrry 4y agoI would agree that it is not. The government, and many people, have moved the definition and goal posts; so that anything that has the end result of a non-proportional uniformity can be labeled and treated as bias. Ultimately it is a nuanced game; is discriminating against certain clothing or hair-styles racist? Of course. Yet, neither of those are explicitly tied to one's skin color or ethnicity, but are an indirect associative trait because of culture. In America, we have intentionally muddled the waters of demarcation between culture and race, and are starting to see the cost of that.