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> 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 trad

> 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.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    > Have you read that paper? Yes. They say that you can't get the diversity distribution you want without discriminating against races. 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. > That paper is purely talking the tradeoffs between individual and group fairness Exactly, we must discriminate against individual Asians in order to get the distributions we want. Too many Asians on campus? Discriminate against Asian individuals to get more "group fairness", yes that is what it means! I just clarified the point, but we are saying the same thing.
    - olddustytrail 4y ago
      Can you link to the paper you read? My search only revealed https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195 https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195 which has no mention whatsoever of the old fashioned idea of "races".
      - Jensson 4y ago
        It is a dog whistle, the groups they talk about includes race, and based on how such people act it is obviously a paper made to encourage racism. By having published that paper now the racists can motivate their racism by saying "Fairness is impossible, I have to be racist here, just see this paper!", I don't think that such behaviour should be encouraged and I don't want racist dog whistles to get any support. Otherwise the paper is pointless. Fairness is still possible as long as you disregard unrelated groupings, just look at the individuals relevant traits and evaluate those so fairness isn't impossible at all. Fairness is only impossible if you want some race or group to get a certain number of spots and they wont get those with a fair distribution, in that case you made fairness impossible since you added an extra requirement, but that isn't what most people mean with fairness. The only reason to add that requirement is that you want to treat a specific group unfairly, and the most salient such group are Asians in college.
        olddustytrail 4y ago

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.
- Jensson 4y ago
  > Have you read that paper? Yes. They say that you can't get the diversity distribution you want without discriminating against races. 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. > That paper is purely talking the tradeoffs between individual and group fairness Exactly, we must discriminate against individual Asians in order to get the distributions we want. Too many Asians on campus? Discriminate against Asian individuals to get more "group fairness", yes that is what it means! I just clarified the point, but we are saying the same thing.
  - olddustytrail 4y ago
    Can you link to the paper you read? My search only revealed https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195 https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195 which has no mention whatsoever of the old fashioned idea of "races".
    - Jensson 4y ago
      It is a dog whistle, the groups they talk about includes race, and based on how such people act it is obviously a paper made to encourage racism. By having published that paper now the racists can motivate their racism by saying "Fairness is impossible, I have to be racist here, just see this paper!", I don't think that such behaviour should be encouraged and I don't want racist dog whistles to get any support. Otherwise the paper is pointless. Fairness is still possible as long as you disregard unrelated groupings, just look at the individuals relevant traits and evaluate those so fairness isn't impossible at all. Fairness is only impossible if you want some race or group to get a certain number of spots and they wont get those with a fair distribution, in that case you made fairness impossible since you added an extra requirement, but that isn't what most people mean with fairness. The only reason to add that requirement is that you want to treat a specific group unfairly, and the most salient such group are Asians in college.
      - olddustytrail 4y ago