3 ms·
> It's idiotic to call it "racist", it's a shitty classifier, and it's incredibly irresponsible (and probably racist) as well as dismissive of actual racism to
by jmull 3y ago
> It's idiotic to call it "racist", it's a shitty classifier, and it's incredibly irresponsible (and probably racist) as well as dismissive of actual racism to pretend that's racist.
It might be useful to understand why it's offensive... Likening black people to apes/gorillas/monkeys is a racist trope with a long history. It's part of casting black people as less than human, which has been used to justify their enslavement and denial of human rights.
I think it's very likely the classifier was not constructed to be racist, but once you see that it is producing racist tropes, it is racist to continue to let it do so.
- cookieperson 3y agoThis. Once a bias is known it must be corrected. Allowing it to stand is basically saying "we don't care about black consumers, they can't use this feature, and we will continue to insult them on accident". Which it's no longer an accident, it's a known racially discriminative software feature... It's like hiring someone to do plumbing. A few customers invite them into their home and report that the new plumber said racist stuff. As a business owner you do what after this?