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posted by martyb on Monday October 03 2016, @01:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-all-adds-up dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard about a story that appeared on CNN on September 9, 2016.

From targeted advertising and insurance to education and policing, Cathy O'Neil's new book 'Weapons of Math Destruction' [WMD] looks at how algorithms and big data are targeting the poor, reinforcing racism and amplifying inequality.

[...] In a vacuum, these models are bad enough, but O'Neil emphasizes, "they're feeding on each other." Education, job prospects, debt and incarceration are all connected, and the way big data is used makes them more inclined to stay that way.

"Poor people are more likely to have bad credit and live in high-crime neighborhoods, surrounded by other poor people," she writes. "Once ... WMDs digest that data, it showers them with subprime loans or for-profit schools. It sends more police to arrest them and when they're convicted it sentences them to longer terms."

In turn, a new set of WMDs uses this data to charge higher rates for mortgages, loans and insurance.

[...] "Big Data processes codify the past," O'Neil writes. "They do not invent the future. Doing that requires moral imagination, and that's something only humans can provide."

I'm not interested in the story. I'm interested in what it says about once proud CNN's current quality of journalism. Fox News: Left Division?

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/06/technology/weapons-of-math-destruction/


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by jmorris on Monday October 03 2016, @08:04AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Monday October 03 2016, @08:04AM (#409303)

    Nice idea. Too bad it is illegal. Ever heard of "Disparate Impact" as a legal concept? It says that if you are handing out licenses to practice medicine and your process doesn't have the same percentage of any 'Protected Minority" (and the list grows, MENA in currently being split from White for the next Census and will certainly get included in all of the quotas) on the output (licenses) as input (applications) that any judge or Diversity Czar at the DOJ, EEOC, HHS, etc., can declare "Disparate Impact" and order you to change your discriminatory process. Knowing this, you ensure you award licenses in carefully measured and documented quotas.

    It is a fact that every graduating class has above average, average and below average doctors. It is a fact that unless you spend a fair amount of effort can't know which group YOUR doctor is in. It is a fact any minority (other than Jew or Asian) was awarded bonus points on admission and special consideration to ensure as many as possible graduated. In light of both facts (neither disputable) that the winning move if picking between two doctors you know nothing about but race/sex, you should pick the Jew/Asian/White and go for the dude. And probably a Jew/Asian/White female over a black/hispanic man but I'd have to look at the current college bonus point system to run that math, Hispanic man might beat white woman. What a colorblind society we have created.

    Of course the real winning move is to learn more about something as important as your doctor and we should be making that easier. If we could see that the black female Dr. who studied hard has better measurables vs a white bro who partied too much in college and it impacts his patient outcomes, it would totally eliminate the need for crude stereotypes. If somebody has the hard numbers and still wants to be racist on something so important... well think of it as evolution in action. Which gets to the topic of today, big data. It shouldn't just be for the huge faceless megacorp.

    Imagine if poor people, who now have the same Internet as everyone else, could run a search on a proposed bank loan and see what percentage of loans of that class (i.e. to people like themselves) go bad (remember, failing to pay back a loan hurts both sides, often unequally; hence predatory loans) and what the average interest in the industry is, etc. If they could quickly see what changes, of those within their means, to their credit score would have the biggest impact. Some of these things are actually beginning to appear and if they become widespread would do more to help the poor than any of this proposed whining about racist math.

    But bottom line? Racist math? First we started seeing headlines in the eight years of Obama's "Post Racial" Presidency that looked ripped from The Onion. Now we are so far beyond, The Onion never would have tried to pass this crap off as satire.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday October 03 2016, @08:53AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Monday October 03 2016, @08:53AM (#409319) Homepage Journal

    Nice idea. Too bad it is illegal. Ever heard of "Disparate Impact" as a legal concept? It says that if you are handing out licenses to practice medicine and your process doesn't have the same percentage of any 'Protected Minority" (and the list grows, MENA in currently being split from White for the next Census and will certainly get included in all of the quotas) on the output (licenses) as input (applications) that any judge or Diversity Czar at the DOJ, EEOC, HHS, etc., can declare "Disparate Impact" and order you to change your discriminatory process. Knowing this, you ensure you award licenses in carefully measured and documented quotas.

    [lots more blathering deleted]

    Two questions for you, jmorris:
    1. Have you ever heard of Medical Board Exams [wikipedia.org]?
    2. Where did you get your law degree?

    I'll have to make sure never to employ an attorney who attended that school. What's that? No law degree? No wonder it smells so bad here -- because you're talking out of your ass, as usual.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by butthurt on Monday October 03 2016, @09:28AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Monday October 03 2016, @09:28AM (#409326) Journal

    I had not written clearly. I attempted sarcasm, but neglected to identify it as such. Later I explained what my meaning was:

    /comments.pl?sid=15807&cid=409284#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

    Apparently you didn't see the clarification, so my writing style caused you to waste nearly an hour and a half of your time. Please accept my apology.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2016, @01:59PM (#409423)

    It is a fact that every graduating class has above average, average and below average doctors. It is a fact that unless you spend a fair amount of effort can't know which group YOUR doctor is in. It is a fact any minority (other than Jew or Asian) was awarded bonus points on admission and special consideration

    ha ha ha

    [citation needed]

    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:22PM

      by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:22PM (#410110)

      Stuff like this does happen, [slashdot.org] but I hardly think it happens everywhere.