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> I studied AI ethics (a recent grad course) and it was all about manipulating data to get the desired outcome. There is so much more than this tbh. You either

> I studied AI ethics (a recent grad course) and it was all about manipulating data to get the desired outcome. There is so much more than this tbh. You either had a bad course, or I just don't know. Off the top of my head: -- fundamental law of information recovery and its implications with differential privacy -- the tradeoff between individual and group fairness and the "Impossibility of fairness" (not going to cite the paper but easily searchable) -- Counterfactual fairness -- the papers and ideas used by AI Fairness 360 There are many methods that are in the box and are relatively agnostic the data preprocessing. Thinking of the many prototype methods.

Jensson 4y ago
"Impossibility of fairness" is the main argument for discrimination against Asians, basically says that since fairness is impossible we just have to be unfair to get the results we want, so I think the parent poster understood the argument correctly. You might say there is more to it than that, but at the end of the day it just boils down to saying that it is fine to do unfair things to get results you want.
- dllthomas 4y ago
  If fairness is impossible then it has to be fine to do (minimally, at least) unfair things because there is no other option.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    Another possibility is that the poor definition of what is fair is used in some contexts.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Again, this is a problem with global versus local context. Just a made up scenario. You have 2 gallons of water and two people. You give each one gallon of water, which should be enough to survive. One lives and one dies. Why? The water was split fairly. For example one could live in the hot desert in which more water is required, and the other lives in a temperate environment where either less water is required, or water can be gathered from this environment. But just think how messy it is to compute fairness in a situation like this. Suddenly it's looking like a NP style problem. People on the other hand typically want cheap and easy solutions.
  - Veen 4y ago
    And if the people who end up on the wrong end of those decisions push back, what are you going to do? Shrug, cite the "impossibility of fairness", and tell them to suck it up? That's a short road to a very unpleasant backlash. Fairness is deeply important to most human beings.
    - dllthomas 4y ago
      How does that make the impossible possible? If fairness is impossible we have to somehow deal with some amount of unfairness. That does not depend on having a good proposal for dealing with unfairness.
      - Veen 4y ago
        The people who have been fucked over will eventually take what they think should be theirs by whatever means they think appropriate. That's how you end up with Trump and even worse.
        dllthomas 4y ago
        Sure. Grant that that's terrible. Or substitute even worse outcomes. That doesn't mean we can require fairness if fairness is impossible. I think people are assuming I'm making a broader case than I've meant to...
    - Nasrudith 4y ago
      Buy a gun or vehicle? Because if you are at the mercy of insane, irrational, and potentially violent actors there is nothing other than force which can guarantee safety. They will call it unfair that their victim fought back and that three or more on one went to the one. Because fairness is a solipsistic, narcissistic standard that cannot be objectively defined. It is more a rhetorical device than anything logic related as you can argue any standard as fair or unfair.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- SpaceManNabs 4y ago
  > it just boils down to saying that it is fine to do unfair things to get results you want A more responsible take: We have to acknowledge that there are tradeoffs and that reasonable stakeholders with accountability should apply relevant standards to certain contexts. Again, this is possible in-the-box and post-box without having to manipulate or funge data (not to diminish the importance of data processsing). Just because satisfying everyone is impossible doesn't mean we can't make things better. And knowing what these tradeoffs are can allow for more nuanced conversations. > "Impossibility of fairness" is the main argument for discrimination against Asians This is just a ridiculous statement. Main argument from whom? Discrimination in what contexts? > I think the parent poster understood the argument correctly. I just expanded that it is more than just data manipulation but sure.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    > This is just a ridiculous statement. Main argument from whom? Discrimination in what contexts? "impossibility of fairness" is to support the argument that it is fair to discriminate against races if it means that we can get the racial distribution we want. College admission does this all the time. When companies does this in black box models we don't see what they do, but we know for a fact the effect of such policies on the processes we have more insight in, such as college admission, and the end result is discrimination against Asians. Wrapping that in a flowery language doesn't change anything. Why not just admit that you support discriminating against races to improve diversity numbers, because that is exactly what the statement is about?
    - SpaceManNabs 4y ago
      > "impossibility of fairness" is to support the argument that it is fair to discriminate against races if it means that we can get the racial distribution we want. That is not at all what it means. That paper is purely talking the tradeoffs between individual and group fairness. The discussions on how to balance different group fairness measures is still an active topic of research and not something I commented on at all. In general: What AI ethics papers on algorithmic fairness have a predetermined racial distribution to reach or suggest so? > Why not just admit that you support discriminating against races to improve diversity numbers, because that is exactly what the statement is about? Have you read that paper? Seems like you are driving these ideas to a political lens that I or that paper didn't suggest at all (and a completely invalid one I might add). edit: I can't reply to the response, but that person must be referring to a different paper. And I have never read an algorithmic fairness paper that dictates which fairness tradeoffs are correct or that it is fair to always upend group fairness over individual fairness (or any other definitions). > Fairness is possible if you don't care about diversity distributions, or at least the paper gives no argument why fairness doesn't work then. in particular, this statement completely discards the idea of different definitions of fairness and how they relate.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  More fundamentally it comes to down to deep problems in social choice theory. For one thing you can't aggregate people's utility functions which makes it impossible to prove that any distribution of wealth is more or less optimal, just, or however you want to frame it. You're left with the weak libertarian argument that "any voluntary fraud-free transaction improves the world" because you can show that it raises the utility function of the participants.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  It's not only about discriminating against races in trying to impose diversity but also discriminating against genders and sexual orientation. Maybe religion, too.

Jensson 4y ago

"Impossibility of fairness" is the main argument for discrimination against Asians, basically says that since fairness is impossible we just have to be unfair to get the results we want, so I think the parent poster understood the argument correctly. You might say there is more to it than that, but at the end of the day it just boils down to saying that it is fine to do unfair things to get results you want.

dllthomas 4y ago
If fairness is impossible then it has to be fine to do (minimally, at least) unfair things because there is no other option.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Another possibility is that the poor definition of what is fair is used in some contexts.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Again, this is a problem with global versus local context. Just a made up scenario. You have 2 gallons of water and two people. You give each one gallon of water, which should be enough to survive. One lives and one dies. Why? The water was split fairly. For example one could live in the hot desert in which more water is required, and the other lives in a temperate environment where either less water is required, or water can be gathered from this environment. But just think how messy it is to compute fairness in a situation like this. Suddenly it's looking like a NP style problem. People on the other hand typically want cheap and easy solutions.
- Veen 4y ago
  And if the people who end up on the wrong end of those decisions push back, what are you going to do? Shrug, cite the "impossibility of fairness", and tell them to suck it up? That's a short road to a very unpleasant backlash. Fairness is deeply important to most human beings.
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    How does that make the impossible possible? If fairness is impossible we have to somehow deal with some amount of unfairness. That does not depend on having a good proposal for dealing with unfairness.
    - Veen 4y ago
      The people who have been fucked over will eventually take what they think should be theirs by whatever means they think appropriate. That's how you end up with Trump and even worse.
      - dllthomas 4y ago
        Sure. Grant that that's terrible. Or substitute even worse outcomes. That doesn't mean we can require fairness if fairness is impossible. I think people are assuming I'm making a broader case than I've meant to...
  - Nasrudith 4y ago
    Buy a gun or vehicle? Because if you are at the mercy of insane, irrational, and potentially violent actors there is nothing other than force which can guarantee safety. They will call it unfair that their victim fought back and that three or more on one went to the one. Because fairness is a solipsistic, narcissistic standard that cannot be objectively defined. It is more a rhetorical device than anything logic related as you can argue any standard as fair or unfair.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
SpaceManNabs 4y ago
> it just boils down to saying that it is fine to do unfair things to get results you want A more responsible take: We have to acknowledge that there are tradeoffs and that reasonable stakeholders with accountability should apply relevant standards to certain contexts. Again, this is possible in-the-box and post-box without having to manipulate or funge data (not to diminish the importance of data processsing). Just because satisfying everyone is impossible doesn't mean we can't make things better. And knowing what these tradeoffs are can allow for more nuanced conversations. > "Impossibility of fairness" is the main argument for discrimination against Asians This is just a ridiculous statement. Main argument from whom? Discrimination in what contexts? > I think the parent poster understood the argument correctly. I just expanded that it is more than just data manipulation but sure.
- Jensson 4y ago
  > This is just a ridiculous statement. Main argument from whom? Discrimination in what contexts? "impossibility of fairness" is to support the argument that it is fair to discriminate against races if it means that we can get the racial distribution we want. College admission does this all the time. When companies does this in black box models we don't see what they do, but we know for a fact the effect of such policies on the processes we have more insight in, such as college admission, and the end result is discrimination against Asians. Wrapping that in a flowery language doesn't change anything. Why not just admit that you support discriminating against races to improve diversity numbers, because that is exactly what the statement is about?
  - SpaceManNabs 4y ago
    > "impossibility of fairness" is to support the argument that it is fair to discriminate against races if it means that we can get the racial distribution we want. That is not at all what it means. That paper is purely talking the tradeoffs between individual and group fairness. The discussions on how to balance different group fairness measures is still an active topic of research and not something I commented on at all. In general: What AI ethics papers on algorithmic fairness have a predetermined racial distribution to reach or suggest so? > Why not just admit that you support discriminating against races to improve diversity numbers, because that is exactly what the statement is about? Have you read that paper? Seems like you are driving these ideas to a political lens that I or that paper didn't suggest at all (and a completely invalid one I might add). edit: I can't reply to the response, but that person must be referring to a different paper. And I have never read an algorithmic fairness paper that dictates which fairness tradeoffs are correct or that it is fair to always upend group fairness over individual fairness (or any other definitions). > Fairness is possible if you don't care about diversity distributions, or at least the paper gives no argument why fairness doesn't work then. in particular, this statement completely discards the idea of different definitions of fairness and how they relate.
PaulHoule 4y ago
More fundamentally it comes to down to deep problems in social choice theory. For one thing you can't aggregate people's utility functions which makes it impossible to prove that any distribution of wealth is more or less optimal, just, or however you want to frame it. You're left with the weak libertarian argument that "any voluntary fraud-free transaction improves the world" because you can show that it raises the utility function of the participants.
DeathArrow 4y ago
It's not only about discriminating against races in trying to impose diversity but also discriminating against genders and sexual orientation. Maybe religion, too.