White House Worried About Discrimination Through Analytics 231
Cludge writes "Describing concerns about the potential for big data methods to inadvertently classify people by race, religion, income or other forms of discrimination, the White House announced it will release a report next week that reviews the adequacy of existing privacy laws and regulations in the era of online data collection. The review, led by Obama's senior counselor, John Podesta, will outline concerns about whether methods used for commercial applications may be inherently vulnerable to inadvertent discrimination. 'He described a program called "Street Bump" in Boston that detected pot-holes using sensors in smartphones of citizens who had downloaded an app. The program inadvertently directed repair crews to wealthier neighborhoods, where people were more likely to carry smartphones and download the app.' 'It's easy to imagine how big data technology, if used to cross legal lines we have been careful to set, could end up reinforcing existing inequities in housing, credit, employment, health and education,' he said."
Re:Oxymoron (Score:5, Interesting)
Black people are generally less intelligent than others and it's our fault.
It could be partly our fault. A generation ago, the difference in IQ scores between protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was almost as wide as that between blacks and whites in America. But today, that gap has completely disappeared. Social conditions have some impact.
The IQ score gap between different races in America is why it is illegal [wikipedia.org] to use any test of general intelligence for hiring or promotion. It is not enough for the inputs to the hiring/promotion process to be "race neutral", the output/result must be as well.
Re:Oxymoron (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not enough for the inputs to the hiring/promotion process to be "race neutral", the output/result must be as well.
Can we get the political system thrown out on this basis? There's only one black man in the US Senate - should be about twelve. Even the House is 'missing' about fifteen members.
Racist (and misogynistic) system has to go. The result is *far* from equal.
Re:Pfft... (Score:2, Interesting)
"FTFY. If you're making this about (R) vs (D), you're part of the problem."
If you're making this about your libertarian or other capitalist fantasies you are part of the problem.
War is a racket
http://www.amazon.com/War-Rack... [amazon.com]
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
On elites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I... [amazon.com]
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society."
Re:Discrimination (Score:4, Interesting)
What's wrong with pricing insurance based on the risk being taken on? Why should I pay higher insurance premiums so higher risk people pay lower ones?
I'm going to dispense with the arguments about being civilized and so forth. The real reason for doing it is to piss off people like you. Even though both my personal health and my family's history are pretty good, hence I would get lower rates under the system you suggest, it's worth the price just to increase the blood pressure (and hence health risk) of people like you.
Re:Generalizing about averages is bad science (Score:2, Interesting)
Tyranny of statistics. Indeed. When looking at the rate of criminal, especially violent crimal activity, especially violent criminal activity resulting in death and dismemberment, the statistics point unfavorably in a particular group's favor.
I'm guessing everyone missed it when the Obama administration took over the census statistics -- the ones used by everyone for a variety of purposes including detecting voter fraud and all of that.
IQ might appear to be meaningless until you see the continuous results of all of this. When you search the term "model minority" you will find all sorts of hateful things. Largely among these are indication that while one ethnic group might seems to struggle due to environmental conditions, others seem to come through it all rather successfully by properly taking advantage of government programs intended to alleviate the problems of adverse environmental conditions.
And let's never talk about Liberia and the failure of every African nation not under western influence. First Zimbabwe and then S. Africa? The word hostile comes to mind and they certainly had their way to their own peril and suffering.
How much of a much bigger picture does anyone need to know before they come to realize what had been consitently stated for literally hundreds if not thousands of years?
And back to tyranny of statistics -- really. Is it tyrannical? Attempting to capture objective reality to better understand what is wrong is tyranny? Let's not forget the purpose of statistics. The opposite of stats is anecdotes and it thrills me to no end that the response to statistics here is anecdotes. (And it should trouble everyone who cites black successes to note that hearly none are 100% black. Tyson is part puerto-rican which is a mix of all sorts. So if anyone wants to pick anecdotal evidence, at least make it valid.)
I used to be on a completely different page than I am on today. I wasn't born or raised this way. I was well into my 20s and 30s before I began to see what's what in life. This, of course, also goes back to statitical tyranny -- trying to deny reality by denial of knowledge is and has always been the classic play by tyrants.