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If a program has affirmative action built in, it is indeed serving a political agenda. AA is a causal relation: if (race == black) score += 10. But if it merel

If a program has affirmative action built in, it is indeed serving a political agenda. AA is a causal relation: if (race == black) score += 10. But if it merely programmed to show ads for "Think Like a Man Too" to people who watched "Think Like a Man" based on a rule about sequels, there is no agenda there beyond profit. In both cases they are disproportionately targeting black people, but in the latter case it's only a composition effect. If you run the sequel targeting program on a group of asians who enjoyed "Think Like a Man", you'll get the same outcome. If you run the AA program on a group of asians, you won't. AA is a causal relationship on race, whereas the sequel rule is not. From previous interactions with you, I gather that you want statistical equality rather than equal treatment. That's great, but many people only care about equality of treatment. The do-calculus (or similar tools) helps with the latter problem, not the former.

pron 12y ago
> But if it merely programmed to show ads for "Think Like a Man Too" to people who watched "Think Like a Man" based on a rule about sequels, there is no agenda there beyond profit. But that's not the dynamics. It's like, there's this whole universe out there with its own forces and dynamics, but you're saying -- nah, I don't care about that, I just care about the current snapshot. Suppose for a second that every school taught blacks to like that movie you referred to. You just created a (causal!!) proxy for race. So now if decisions pertaining to your future income are based on you having watched the movie, then all of a sudden they become pure of ideology? First, we create a proxy, then we discriminate based on the proxy, and finally we claim no political agenda because we're "only" discriminating on that proxy. > but in the latter case it's only a composition effect. Why does that make a difference? Why do you think targeting correlations is somehow less political than targeting race directly? Your direct intentions are not what matters here. What matters here is what future your actions serve. Any directed (i.e. non-noise) changes (or lack thereof) to human society caused by humans are politics[1]. > I gather that you want statistical equality rather than equal treatment Quite the opposite. If there's a society with built in mistreatment of certain races, then that mistreatment must first be addressed. You see equal treatment only because you don't try to learn how society works. Politics changes society all the time. What society looks like now is a result of yesterday's politics, and what it will look like tomorrow is a result of today's. You're simply suggesting implementing conservative politics that don't try to change society today. But there's absolutely no objective advantage to the current situation over a previous or a future one. That's what's known as the naturist, or is-ought, fallacy. What I find quite interesting is that as a a scientist, you take absolutely no interest in learning how things work and how we can change them. You want to hack computers but not society. How is that not a political agenda? P.S. I tried finding a good starting point to learning the topic (of politics), or at least understanding what issues researchers are looking into and what they've found. I think a good introduction is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics and in particular http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academic_discipline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academi...
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  I don't really know what you mean by political - I think you are defining it pretty expansively. What, exactly, would count as NOT political to you? If there's a society with mistreatment of certain races built in, then that mistreatment must first be addressed. It's a bit unreasonable to ask adwords engineers to layer on some post-hoc fix many miles downstream when they can't even measure the mistreatment or reasonably predict the effect of the fix. It's also completely unfair to the individual humans (individual humans are the only ones I care about) who didn't mistreat anyone and are now obligated to pay for the actions of someone else (in the form of fewer clicks on ads). And of course, built into all of this is the assumption that statistical disparities are all caused by mistreatment. That is unlikely to be true. Incidentally, as per the description given in your edit, unintentionded consequences of ad serving algorithms can only be interpreted as "political" in the broadest sense. So can anything else. So if you just mean "political" in the sense of "anything that ever affects anything", then sure - ad serving is political.
  - pron 12y ago
    Politics = human actions that affect distribution of power in society. See the end of this comment for examples of political and non-political things. > It's a bit unreasonable to ask adwords engineers to layer on some post-hoc fix... Maybe so. But this article notes the interesting fact that failing to do so is a political action. We can leave the discussion of what we should do to another time. Right now it's just important to understand what it is that we are doing. > also completely unfair to the individual humans Again, that is a question of policy and values. You may find it unfair and I may think the opposite is unfair; that's a matter of political orientation. But this article is not about what's fair and unfair, but an objective observation of the role computers play in the dynamics of society. > And of course, built into all of this is the assumption that statistical disparities are all caused by mistreatment. Not quite. What's built into this is the fact that human actions -- intentional or inadvertent -- affect the distribution of power in society. Whether or not there's mistreatment is a specific question pertaining to the specific histories of specific countries and societies. > That is unlikely to be true. Well, this is a question of fact, and research has conclusively shown a direct link from slavery and Jim Crow (that lasted for 250 + 100 = 350 years more or less, and ended, as official legal policy, only 50 years -- one generation -- ago) to the current distribution of power among races in American society. EDIT: people who hold liberal values do make one relevant assumption: that it is very unlikely that certain groups would voluntarily (i.e. free of any influence and persuasion) yield power (over them) to others. Theoretically, this assumption could be wrong, but so far we have no reason to believe so. Also, this seems like a sensible assumption, and the burden of proof should be on those who think it's false. > "political" in the sense of "anything that ever affects anything", then sure - ad serving is political. I mean political as in political[1]: human actions that affect distribution of power in society. If a volcano erupts and destroys a town -- that's not political. If however, the volcano is known to be dangerous and therefore only poor people buy houses in its vicinity, there may be politics involved. The invention of the locomotive is purely technological, but choosing which cities the railway passes through might be political. Machine learning is technological. But programming computers to take actions which may affect the distribution of power based on machine learning extracting information from past data is political. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academic_discipline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academi...

pron 12y ago

> But if it merely programmed to show ads for "Think Like a Man Too" to people who watched "Think Like a Man" based on a rule about sequels, there is no agenda there beyond profit. But that's not the dynamics. It's like, there's this whole universe out there with its own forces and dynamics, but you're saying -- nah, I don't care about that, I just care about the current snapshot. Suppose for a second that every school taught blacks to like that movie you referred to. You just created a (causal!!) proxy for race. So now if decisions pertaining to your future income are based on you having watched the movie, then all of a sudden they become pure of ideology? First, we create a proxy, then we discriminate based on the proxy, and finally we claim no political agenda because we're "only" discriminating on that proxy. > but in the latter case it's only a composition effect. Why does that make a difference? Why do you think targeting correlations is somehow less political than targeting race directly? Your direct intentions are not what matters here. What matters here is what future your actions serve. Any directed (i.e. non-noise) changes (or lack thereof) to human society caused by humans are politics[1]. > I gather that you want statistical equality rather than equal treatment Quite the opposite. If there's a society with built in mistreatment of certain races, then that mistreatment must first be addressed. You see equal treatment only because you don't try to learn how society works. Politics changes society all the time. What society looks like now is a result of yesterday's politics, and what it will look like tomorrow is a result of today's. You're simply suggesting implementing conservative politics that don't try to change society today. But there's absolutely no objective advantage to the current situation over a previous or a future one. That's what's known as the naturist, or is-ought, fallacy. What I find quite interesting is that as a a scientist, you take absolutely no interest in learning how things work and how we can change them. You want to hack computers but not society. How is that not a political agenda? P.S. I tried finding a good starting point to learning the topic (of politics), or at least understanding what issues researchers are looking into and what they've found. I think a good introduction is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics and in particular http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academic_discipline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academi...

yummyfajitas 12y ago
I don't really know what you mean by political - I think you are defining it pretty expansively. What, exactly, would count as NOT political to you? If there's a society with mistreatment of certain races built in, then that mistreatment must first be addressed. It's a bit unreasonable to ask adwords engineers to layer on some post-hoc fix many miles downstream when they can't even measure the mistreatment or reasonably predict the effect of the fix. It's also completely unfair to the individual humans (individual humans are the only ones I care about) who didn't mistreat anyone and are now obligated to pay for the actions of someone else (in the form of fewer clicks on ads). And of course, built into all of this is the assumption that statistical disparities are all caused by mistreatment. That is unlikely to be true. Incidentally, as per the description given in your edit, unintentionded consequences of ad serving algorithms can only be interpreted as "political" in the broadest sense. So can anything else. So if you just mean "political" in the sense of "anything that ever affects anything", then sure - ad serving is political.
- pron 12y ago
  Politics = human actions that affect distribution of power in society. See the end of this comment for examples of political and non-political things. > It's a bit unreasonable to ask adwords engineers to layer on some post-hoc fix... Maybe so. But this article notes the interesting fact that failing to do so is a political action. We can leave the discussion of what we should do to another time. Right now it's just important to understand what it is that we are doing. > also completely unfair to the individual humans Again, that is a question of policy and values. You may find it unfair and I may think the opposite is unfair; that's a matter of political orientation. But this article is not about what's fair and unfair, but an objective observation of the role computers play in the dynamics of society. > And of course, built into all of this is the assumption that statistical disparities are all caused by mistreatment. Not quite. What's built into this is the fact that human actions -- intentional or inadvertent -- affect the distribution of power in society. Whether or not there's mistreatment is a specific question pertaining to the specific histories of specific countries and societies. > That is unlikely to be true. Well, this is a question of fact, and research has conclusively shown a direct link from slavery and Jim Crow (that lasted for 250 + 100 = 350 years more or less, and ended, as official legal policy, only 50 years -- one generation -- ago) to the current distribution of power among races in American society. EDIT: people who hold liberal values do make one relevant assumption: that it is very unlikely that certain groups would voluntarily (i.e. free of any influence and persuasion) yield power (over them) to others. Theoretically, this assumption could be wrong, but so far we have no reason to believe so. Also, this seems like a sensible assumption, and the burden of proof should be on those who think it's false. > "political" in the sense of "anything that ever affects anything", then sure - ad serving is political. I mean political as in political[1]: human actions that affect distribution of power in society. If a volcano erupts and destroys a town -- that's not political. If however, the volcano is known to be dangerous and therefore only poor people buy houses in its vicinity, there may be politics involved. The invention of the locomotive is purely technological, but choosing which cities the railway passes through might be political. Machine learning is technological. But programming computers to take actions which may affect the distribution of power based on machine learning extracting information from past data is political. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academic_discipline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Politics_as_an_academi...