4 ms·

What's so striking is how strongly race shows in X-rays. That's unexpected.

by Animats 2y ago

banqjls 2y ago
But is it really?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
danielmarkbruce 2y ago
The fact that the vast majority of physical differences don't matter in the modern world doesn't mean they don't actually exist..
- DickingAround 2y ago
  This is a good point; a man or woman sitting behind a desk doing correlation analysis are going to look very similar in their function to a business. But they probably physically look pretty distinct to an x-ray picture.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sergiotapia 2y ago
It's odd how we can segment between different species in animals, but in humans it's taboo to talk about this. Threw the baby out with the baby water. I hope we can fix this soon so everybody can benefit from AI. The fact that I'm a male latino should be an input for an AI trained on male latinos! I want great care! I don't want pretend kumbaya that we are all humans in the end. That's not true. We are distinct! We all deserve love and respect and care, but we are distinct!
- schnable 2y ago
  That's because humans are all the same species.
  - sdsd 2y ago
    In terms ofLinnaean taxonomy, and Chihuahuas and wolves are also the same species, in that they can reproduce fertile offspring. We instead differentiate them using the less objective subspecies classification. So it appears that with canines we're comfortable delineating subspecies, why not with humans? I don't think we should, but your particular argument seems open to this critique.
    - sergiotapia 2y ago
      yes this is what I was referring to. I think it's time we become open to this reality to improve healthcare for everybody.
kjkjadksj 2y ago
Race has such striking phenotypes on the outside it should come as no surprise there are also internal phenotypes and significant heterogeneity.
dekhn 2y ago
It doesn't seem surprising at all. Genetic history correlates with race, and genetic history correlates with body-level phenotypes; race also correlates with socioeconomic status which correlates with body-level phenotypes. They are of course fairly complex correlations with many confounding factors and uncontrolled variables. It has been controversial to discuss this and a lot of discussions about this end up in flamewars, but it doesn't seem surprising, at least to me, from my understanding of the relationship between genetic history and body-level phenotypes.
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  What is the body-level phenotype of a ribcage by race? I think what baffles me is that black people as a group are more genetically diverse than every other race put together so I have no idea how you would identify race by ribcage x-rays exclusively.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    I use the term genetic history, rather than race, as race is only weakly correlated with body level phenotypes. If your question is truly in good faith (rather than a "I want to get in argument "), then my answer is: it's complicated. Machine learning models that work on images learn extremely complicated correlations between pixels and labels. If on average, people with a specific genetic history had slightly larger ribcages (due to their genetics, or even socioeconomic status that correlated with genetic history), that would exhibit in a number of ways in the pixels of a radiograph- larger bones spread across more pixels, density of bones slightly higher or lower, organ size differences, etc. It is true that Africa has more genetic diversity than anywhere else; the current explanation is that after humans arose in africa, they spread and evolved extensively, but only a small number of genetically limited groups left africa and reproduced/evolved elsewhere in the world.
    - KittenInABox 2y ago
      I am genuinely asking because it makes no sense to me that a genetically diverse group are distinctly identifiable by their ribcage bones in an x-ray. If it's something more specific like AI sucks at statistically larger ribcages, statistically noticeable bone densities, or similar, okay. But something like so-small-humans-cannot-tell-but-is-simultaneously-widely-applicable-to-a-large-genetic-population is utterly baffling to me.

What's so striking is how strongly race shows in X-rays. That's unexpected.

banqjls 2y ago

But is it really?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

danielmarkbruce 2y ago

The fact that the vast majority of physical differences don't matter in the modern world doesn't mean they don't actually exist..

DickingAround 2y ago
This is a good point; a man or woman sitting behind a desk doing correlation analysis are going to look very similar in their function to a business. But they probably physically look pretty distinct to an x-ray picture.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

sergiotapia 2y ago

It's odd how we can segment between different species in animals, but in humans it's taboo to talk about this. Threw the baby out with the baby water. I hope we can fix this soon so everybody can benefit from AI. The fact that I'm a male latino should be an input for an AI trained on male latinos! I want great care! I don't want pretend kumbaya that we are all humans in the end. That's not true. We are distinct! We all deserve love and respect and care, but we are distinct!

schnable 2y ago
That's because humans are all the same species.
- sdsd 2y ago
  In terms ofLinnaean taxonomy, and Chihuahuas and wolves are also the same species, in that they can reproduce fertile offspring. We instead differentiate them using the less objective subspecies classification. So it appears that with canines we're comfortable delineating subspecies, why not with humans? I don't think we should, but your particular argument seems open to this critique.
  - sergiotapia 2y ago
    yes this is what I was referring to. I think it's time we become open to this reality to improve healthcare for everybody.

kjkjadksj 2y ago

Race has such striking phenotypes on the outside it should come as no surprise there are also internal phenotypes and significant heterogeneity.

dekhn 2y ago

It doesn't seem surprising at all. Genetic history correlates with race, and genetic history correlates with body-level phenotypes; race also correlates with socioeconomic status which correlates with body-level phenotypes. They are of course fairly complex correlations with many confounding factors and uncontrolled variables. It has been controversial to discuss this and a lot of discussions about this end up in flamewars, but it doesn't seem surprising, at least to me, from my understanding of the relationship between genetic history and body-level phenotypes.

KittenInABox 2y ago
What is the body-level phenotype of a ribcage by race? I think what baffles me is that black people as a group are more genetically diverse than every other race put together so I have no idea how you would identify race by ribcage x-rays exclusively.
- dekhn 2y ago
  I use the term genetic history, rather than race, as race is only weakly correlated with body level phenotypes. If your question is truly in good faith (rather than a "I want to get in argument "), then my answer is: it's complicated. Machine learning models that work on images learn extremely complicated correlations between pixels and labels. If on average, people with a specific genetic history had slightly larger ribcages (due to their genetics, or even socioeconomic status that correlated with genetic history), that would exhibit in a number of ways in the pixels of a radiograph- larger bones spread across more pixels, density of bones slightly higher or lower, organ size differences, etc. It is true that Africa has more genetic diversity than anywhere else; the current explanation is that after humans arose in africa, they spread and evolved extensively, but only a small number of genetically limited groups left africa and reproduced/evolved elsewhere in the world.
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    I am genuinely asking because it makes no sense to me that a genetically diverse group are distinctly identifiable by their ribcage bones in an x-ray. If it's something more specific like AI sucks at statistically larger ribcages, statistically noticeable bone densities, or similar, okay. But something like so-small-humans-cannot-tell-but-is-simultaneously-widely-applicable-to-a-large-genetic-population is utterly baffling to me.