13 posts tagged with bias and technology.
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The Trick of Orthodoxy
Economics truly is a disgrace - "This is very personal post. It is my story of the retaliation I suffered immediately after my 'economics is a disgrace' blog post went viral. The retaliation came from Heather Boushey–a recent Biden appointee to the Council of Economic Adviser and the President and CEO of Equitable Growth where I then worked. This is not the story I wanted to be telling (or living). Writing this post is painful. I am sorry." (via; previously) [more inside]
The chickenization of everything
How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (thread) - "Surveillance Capitalism is a real, serious, urgent problem... because it is both emblematic of monopolies (which lead to corruption, AKA conspiracies) and because the vast, nonconsensual dossiers it compiles on us can be used to compromise and neutralize opposition to the status quo."[1,2,3] [more inside]
A blind and opaque reputelligent nosedive
Data isn't just being collected from your phone. It's being used to score you. - "Operating in the shadows of the online marketplace, specialized tech companies you've likely never heard of are tapping vast troves of our personal data to generate secret 'surveillance scores' — digital mug shots of millions of Americans — that supposedly predict our future behavior. The firms sell their scoring services to major businesses across the U.S. economy. People with low scores can suffer harsh consequences."[1] [more inside]
Ethics in AI
DeepMind researchers propose rebuilding the AI industry on a base of anticolonialism - "The researchers detailed how to build AI systems while critically examining colonialism and colonial forms of AI already in use in a preprint paper released Thursday. The paper was coauthored by DeepMind research scientists William Isaac and Shakir Mohammed and Marie-Therese Png, an Oxford doctoral student and DeepMind Ethics and Society intern who previously provided tech advice to the United Nations Secretary General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation." [more inside]
Out of Mind
The Hidden Heroines of Chaos - "Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science." [more inside]
Algorithms define our lives
Original Sin
Our Bodies or Ourselves - "The collection and storage of people's biometric data fundamentally changes the relationship between citizen and state. Once 'presumed innocent', we are now, in the sinister words of former UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd, 'unconvicted persons.' " (via)
Fairness and Bias Reduction in Machine Learning
As artificial intelligence begins to drive many important decisions (e.g. loans, college admissions, bail), the problem of biased AI has become increasingly prominent (previously, previously, previously). Recently researchers, including at Google and Microsoft, have started taking the problem of fairness seriously. [more inside]
It's no longer the women who are resigned
Two years ago, Ellen Pao lost her discrimination lawsuit against VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Many women in the startup world became discouraged about speaking out about their experiences, but that has changed radically. In February former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing harassment at Uber(previously). This inspired an investigation, and others began to share stories of other horrible practices at Uber, eventually leading to founder Travis Kalanick resigning last week (and the resignation of a board member who couldn't help making a sexist joke during a meeting to discuss the allegations). Binary Capital partner Justin Caldbeck resigned shortly thereafter following several women coming forward to report inappropriate behavior toward them while fundraising; Binary has since announced it is shutting down its most recent fund, and two other partners have resigned. On Thursday, VC and Shark Tank investor Chris Sacca published a Medium post about his realization that he has "more work to do". Less than 24 hours later, the New York Times published a report of multiple women coming forward on the record with corroborating documentation to name Chris Sacca and a number of other high-profile VCs in further allegations of sexism, harassment, and inappropriate behavior. [more inside]
Through a Glass, Dark Enlightenment
The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is Building an Algorithmic Model of Its Founder's Brain - "Mr. Dalio has the highest stratum score at Bridgewater, and the firm has told employees he has one of the highest in the world. Likewise, Bridgewater's software judges Mr. Dalio the firm's most 'believable' employee in matters such as investing and leadership, which means his opinions carry more weight. Mr. Dalio is always in search of new data with which to measure his staff. He once raised the idea of using head bands to track people's brain waves, according to one former employee. The idea wasn't adopted." [more inside]
Auditing Algorithms and Algorithmic Auditing
How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy - "A former academic mathematician and ex-hedge fund quant exposes flaws in how information is used to assess everything from creditworthiness to policing tactics, with results that cause damage both financially and to the fabric of society. Programmed biases and a lack of feedback are among the concerns behind the clever and apt title of Cathy O'Neil's book: Weapons of Math Destruction." [more inside]
“We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews.”
interviewing.io is a platform where people can practice technical interviewing anonymously and find jobs based on their interview performance. Women historically haven’t performed as well as men—specifically, men were getting advanced to the next round 1.4 times more often than women, and had a 20% higher average technical score from interviewers. In an attempt to erase this difference, interviewing.io added voice modulation to their online interviews.
As if we all have the same online experience
One day Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney googled herself with a reporter friend sitting next to her. An ad popped up inquiring about her arrest record. She had never been arrested. "It must be because you have one of those Black Names!" the friend said. "That's impossible," she replied, "Computers can't be racist." But then she started doing research. [more inside]
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