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I hate headlines/framings like this. > It’s convention that you want your p-value to be less than 0.05 to declare something statistically significant – in this

by fwip 3y ago

I hate headlines/framings like this. > It’s convention that you want your p-value to be less than 0.05 to declare something statistically significant – in this case, that would mean less than 5% chance that the results were due to randomness. This p-value of 0.2442 is way higher than that. You can't get "ChatGPT isn't racist" out of that. You can only get "this study has not conclusively demonstrated that ChatGPT is racist" (for the category in question). And in fact, in half of the categories, ChatGPT3.5 does show very strong evidence of racism / racial bias (p-value below 1e-4).

minimaxir 3y ago
Unfortunately, there's no good way to say that a p > 0.05 is a failure to reject the null hypothesis (which does not imply the null hypothesis is correct) without making nonstatistican readers bored. Statistical writing is hard.
- wrs 3y ago
  “Bloomberg didn’t show that ChatGPT is racist” is probably the best you can do for the headline. (They didn’t do that either.)
  - dang 3y ago
    Ok, we've put that in the title above. Thanks! If someone has a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title to suggest, we can change it again.
6510 3y ago
But we can be sure the training data isn't racist.
posix86 3y ago
They put it correctly in the article tho: > Using Bloomberg’s numbers, ChatGPT does NOT appear to have a racial bias when it comes to judging software engineers’ resumes.2 The results appear to be more noise than signal. Which in most contexts means the same as "does appear to not have a racial bias", but not in statistics. One of the reasons why communicating results in research accurately is incredably hard.
- gs17 3y ago
  They also said "that there was, in fact, no racial bias", which is a bit stronger than "no evidence of racial bias". In a context where words like "significant" are overloaded, it makes sense to me to be extra careful with phrasing.
SpaceManNabs 3y ago
I basically had the same comment. The issue is that they are responding to bloomberg's flawed analysis. The article focuses on the already-determined metrics correctly, but this discussion already started on the faulty premise that name-based discrimination is the primary metric for determining racial bias in chatgpt.
leeny 3y ago
Author here. This is a good point. We'll soften our language
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  There’s another thing you have to consider. The Bloomberg article was more like “based on existing case law, will you lose a lawsuit?” Bloomberg concluded that the answer was yes, you will lose the lawsuit. Nothing you’ve done will change that answer. Your stats expert witness will testify that it is possible that it is not racist, it could also be X, Y, or Z. If this was the only witness maybe you’d have some chance of winning. But your HR director and CEO and others are going to forced into admitting that X, Y, and Z are not at all things that they would select for in their hiring practices. So the jury will be left thinking that there aren’t any other reasons you added this tool to your hiring process. Case closed, you lose.
- bitcharmer 3y ago
  Please don't cower to people who call everything racist. It's pure nonsense

by fwip 3y ago

minimaxir 3y ago

Unfortunately, there's no good way to say that a p > 0.05 is a failure to reject the null hypothesis (which does not imply the null hypothesis is correct) without making nonstatistican readers bored. Statistical writing is hard.

wrs 3y ago
“Bloomberg didn’t show that ChatGPT is racist” is probably the best you can do for the headline. (They didn’t do that either.)
- dang 3y ago
  Ok, we've put that in the title above. Thanks! If someone has a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title to suggest, we can change it again.

6510 3y ago

But we can be sure the training data isn't racist.

posix86 3y ago

They put it correctly in the article tho: > Using Bloomberg’s numbers, ChatGPT does NOT appear to have a racial bias when it comes to judging software engineers’ resumes.2 The results appear to be more noise than signal. Which in most contexts means the same as "does appear to not have a racial bias", but not in statistics. One of the reasons why communicating results in research accurately is incredably hard.

gs17 3y ago
They also said "that there was, in fact, no racial bias", which is a bit stronger than "no evidence of racial bias". In a context where words like "significant" are overloaded, it makes sense to me to be extra careful with phrasing.

SpaceManNabs 3y ago

I basically had the same comment. The issue is that they are responding to bloomberg's flawed analysis. The article focuses on the already-determined metrics correctly, but this discussion already started on the faulty premise that name-based discrimination is the primary metric for determining racial bias in chatgpt.

leeny 3y ago

Author here. This is a good point. We'll soften our language

Kon-Peki 3y ago
There’s another thing you have to consider. The Bloomberg article was more like “based on existing case law, will you lose a lawsuit?” Bloomberg concluded that the answer was yes, you will lose the lawsuit. Nothing you’ve done will change that answer. Your stats expert witness will testify that it is possible that it is not racist, it could also be X, Y, or Z. If this was the only witness maybe you’d have some chance of winning. But your HR director and CEO and others are going to forced into admitting that X, Y, and Z are not at all things that they would select for in their hiring practices. So the jury will be left thinking that there aren’t any other reasons you added this tool to your hiring process. Case closed, you lose.
bitcharmer 3y ago
Please don't cower to people who call everything racist. It's pure nonsense