SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Algorithms 'consistently' more accurate than people in predicting recidivism, study says:
In a study with potentially far-reaching implications for criminal justice in the United States, a team of California researchers has found that algorithms are significantly more accurate than humans in predicting which defendants will later be arrested for a new crime.
[...] "Risk assessment has long been a part of decision-making in the criminal justice system," said Jennifer Skeem, a psychologist who specializes in criminal justice at UC Berkeley. "Although recent debate has raised important questions about algorithm-based tools, our research shows that in contexts resembling real criminal justice settings, risk assessments are often more accurate than human judgment in predicting recidivism. That's consistent with a long line of research comparing humans to statistical tools."
"Validated risk-assessment instruments can help justice professionals make more informed decisions," said Sharad Goel, a computational social scientist at Stanford University. "For example, these tools can help judges identify and potentially release people who pose little risk to public safety. But, like any tools, risk assessment instruments must be coupled with sound policy and human oversight to support fair and effective criminal justice reform."
The paper—"The limits of human predictions of recidivism"—was slated for publication Feb. 14, 2020, in Science Advances. Skeem presented the research on Feb. 13 in a news briefing at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle, Wash. Joining her were two co-authors: Ph.D. graduate Jongbin Jung and Ph.D. candidate Zhiyuan "Jerry" Lin, who both studied computational social science at Stanford.
More information:
Z. Lin, et al. The limits of human predictions of recidivism [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0652)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @07:42PM (6 children)
If your hypothesis was accurate, we'd expect to see comparable homicide/murder rates among other individuals after adjusting for socioeconomic status. We do not, and it's not even remotely close. You also would not see things such as this [wikipedia.org]. That was a long-term major study that was supposed to prove once and for all that all this genetics stuff was a distant second to environmental factors. They took a large number of well educated, wealthier whites who were interested in adopting black children. The problem is that the study showed the exact opposite of what it was supposed to show.
Adopted children who came from two black parents had an average IQ at age 17 of 83.7. Adopted children who came from two white parents had an average IQ at age 17 of 101.5. It's easy to still blame environmental factors, and they no doubt do play some role. But there's one really interesting "accidental" control in that experiment. Some of the adopted children were accidentally classified incorrectly. They were supposed to have come from two black parents, when in fact they came from one black and one white parent. These children, in spite of living their lives believing their parents were black, in spite of the adopters believing the same, and so on - ended up scoring about 10 points higher than the 'real' black children.
In the US I think we are kind of afraid to talk about things like this, because the concern is we'll just go full Hitler. That's not an unreasonable concern. However there's a pretty large gulf of possibilities for advancement and development of society between the two absurd extremes of 'there is no such thing as genetics or race or anything - everybody is absolutely identical' and 'down with everybody except the master race.' I mean consider for a second that you are wrong. Think about what we are doing to people, and to ourselves. "Oh you can do better! You just need a bit more encouragement. Here let me pass some special laws, just for you. Let me make it much easier for you to get into a university than anybody else. I know you can do it!" And then they don't do it. How is this going to make them feel? Encouraged? Or frustrated, angry, self loathing, and spiteful? Let alone our Ahabian search for some form of bias or discrimination we're engaging in that's perhaps holding them back. What if no such thing actually exists?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @11:11PM
I'd be worried that when they get to be adolescents and hang around people of their own race, their friends will convince them to rob and kill their adoptive parents.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2020, @11:30PM
^ is why you don't touch the subject. That AC is one step away from eugenics based genocide.
Also, your "taboo" topic is also scientifically questionable and doesn't take into account multi-generation effects which we are recently finding out do occur. Environmental stressors affect genetic expression, and no amount of racism-lite will make your garbage more palatable.
I won't call you a racist since you're trying so hard to not be one, but the topic you are quivering about is simply not that important, and your whinging about affirmative action measures totally ignores the reality of systemic racism.
I think it is fair, if you want to ignore systemic racism then we're gonna ignore your whinging about affirmative action taking yer jerrrrbs.
(Score: 2, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday February 19 2020, @11:49PM (1 child)
Wow. You've changed my mind. I don't know what to say. Clearly, the Negro is genetically inferior and we just don't want to accept it because of our feelz. You've proved that all the Negro needs is some good ol' white cock in them, not that we've haven't been trying real hard for a couple hundred years mind you, but we could try harder.
LOL, nice try Russian troll.
Unfortunately, I'm worried your bullshit works on the white trash and white supremacists. Normal people like myself though remember plenty of black people that are highly intelligent good folks. Like an IT guy, teacher, businessman/politician, doctor, market analyst, and I'm probably forgetting other fine folks I've met.
I've come across a few men, that happened to be black, that also happened to be quite thug like. Certainly fits the description of violent and stupid. While one might be tended to draw conclusions from that, I tend to remember the systemic racism and oppression from the war on drugs that was applied unequally to communities of color. So if we're going to be honest and get past our feelz, we need to accept that there was some engineering of those apparent failures. It's absolutely incorrect to attribute that to genetics, and not sociopolitical pressures creating environments to breed crime, despair, material deprivation, and recidivism. Especially when said recidivism revolves around the production and consumption of marijauna, something that has been applied very unequally in terms of consumption. I'm leaving stuff out, because it's still even more complicated than that.
Then finally, I've met my share of black children. Some perhaps not so smart, and some quite sharp and quick witted. The only race that I can possibly attribute a greater overall IQ are Asian, and I still know that probably has to do with culture and home environment more than genetics.
Your attempts to convince people that genetics play a role, and that the average black man is barely above Forest Gump, falls flat on its face for anyone living on the coasts and major cities. When you leave that for rural areas, yeah, you can find some poor black communities, and probably some unsophisticated people. On the whole though, hospitable and nice. Just like the poor white communities we all know exists, that have some bad apples in them too.
For every low IQ black person you can find, we can match it with a low IQ individual of a different race. There's a fact for you.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @06:23AM
Everything is on a curve. Brilliant people can have idiotic children, but it's unlikely. And stupid people can have brilliant children, but it's also just unlikely. So for instance IQ is just one measure of intelligence, but it's at least a reasonable proxy. And adult IQ in in the latest studies is looking to be upwards of 80% [wikipedia.org] heritable. Heritability does not speak of the measured value itself, but the difference between two samples. If sample 1 has an IQ of 100, and sample 2 has an IQ of 140 - we'd expect that 32+ points of difference there are attributable to genetics, on average. I'll get into the children thing a minute. It's really really interesting, and quite weird!
So nothing I've suggested is saying that all blacks are dumb or that all East Asians (who tend to have the highest IQs) are smart. It simply says that if you take 1000 of each group, the percent that do end up smart or dumb, is going to be radically different. This is another thing that makes our Quixotic battle against everything that might be causing the discrepancy (beyond plain old genetics) all the more destructive. Because you can be led to believe, by pure randomness, that that windmill you just knocked down has you finally on the right path.
When you get into socioeconomic factors things get even nastier because it's so easy to reverse the order of causation. IQ is strongly correlated with wealth. And so it's easy to say 'wealth causes IQ' but that's pretty easy to disprove in a large number of ways. One is a simple logical problem. Wealth didn't always exist. It was created in some countries, but not in others. And the less naturally hospitable a country's geography is, the greater their trend towards wealth. Why might that be? I currently live right off the equator. It is absolutely beautiful. Great weather, bountiful lands, and an incredibly relaxed (to a fault) and friendly people. Even as a fool you could live off the land here without a concern in the world. The equator, in terms of basic human needs, is practically a utopia. By contrast in less hospitable areas, particularly those further off the equator, if you don't build, prepare, and maintain the rather complex systems required for just basic survival - you die. One group had a selector for high IQ, the other did not. One group is now disproportionately prosperous, the other group remains disproportionately in poverty.
---
Back to IQ and children. When you're young environment plays quite a large role in IQ and general intelligence. However, as you age your IQ trends towards that 80% regardless of gains or losses during childhood. So for instance during the Minnesota adoption study you can see that every single adopted child's IQ dropped from age 7 to age 17. The reason for that is that the children were raised in privileged households where they environmental life was much higher than normal. And so this bumped up their measured results. But as the children aged into adolescence and adulthood - their IQ's regressed mostly down to their genetic components. By contrast you'd see the exact opposite for those who came from poor upbringings. Environmental factors would result in a disproportionately low IQ when they were young, but this would gradually increase as they aged.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)
> Adopted children who came from two black parents had an average IQ at age 17 of 83.7. Adopted children who came from two white parents had an average IQ at age 17 of 101.5.
Dending what you mean by "came from", one of those sets wasn't even in the study, according to your description of it:
If you meant "genetically from", the there were no adopted "black children" who "came from two white parents";
If you meant "raised by", the there were no adopted "black children" who "came from two black parents".
Clarity is paramount when communication science. You do not display clarity, so you're not communicating science with your above post, one has to even question whether you've understood the science, if you're so unable to communicate it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @05:26AM
I think it was obvious I meant genetically from. The distinction was not tautological. It was to draw the distinction between those genetically from 2 black parents, or 1 black parent and 1 white parent. The "accidental" control in that study, makes this an even more critical point of distinction.