It is when the quest for fairness goes too far. Predictive policing is close to this, and also causes strong reactions: complaining about negative feedback loops, but seemingly ignoring that these problem neighborhoods need more police attention, if we want to combat violent deaths and youth gangs.
Police has a limited capacity. I want that capacity, paid for with taxes, to be optimized. If that means racial profiling, because some races are more prone to crime, then so be it. That is another form of fairness. Humans employing these techniques make use of common sense, a long sought after feat that AI barely mimicks.
You do not fix societal problems, such as racism or racial crime statistics with algorithms anyway. These communities should put the blame elsewhere, starting with themselves, before they point the finger at "racist" algorithms. It is not statistics fault when certain groups are more or less likely to commit crimes.
> These communities should put the blame elsewhere, starting with themselves
So the communities of people who are direct descendants of people were forcibly brought here, enslaved, and then systematically denied access to the mechanisms the rest of our ancestors used to build wealth, should blame themselves because they have higher crime rates?
White families have more than 10 times the wealth of black families on average. This is directly caused by the years of systemic oppression faced by their ancestors.
In addition, to this day, we arrest them at a higher rate rate than White people for the same crimes. We are more likely to convict them for the same crimes. And we give them longer sentences for the same crimes. Elementary school teachers even give harsher punishments to Black students for the same infraction.
Job seekers with black sounding names are significantly less likely to be called back for interviews. Black renters have a harder time renting than White renters with the same credit score. The list goes on and on. When you combine all of this, you end up with a community with a higher crime rate. The problem is caused by systemic injustice, it's not a problem that black communities can fix themselves. If you apply those same conditions to any demographic, you would see a higher crime rate--it's inevitable.
>If that means racial profiling, because some races are more prone to crime, then so be it.
And it's absurd to use that higher crime rate to justify racial profiling, which inevitably has a disparate impact on innocent Black people, which erodes trust in police and institutions, which directly leads to even more criminality. In turn that leads to even more racial profiling. You can't just ignore positive feedback loops by mentioning them and pretending they don't exist.
>That is another form of fairness
Trial by combat, enslaving defeated enemies, and separate but equal are all "other forms of fairness" that our society has rejected.
>Yes, I think these communities should take a good look at themselves and confront the problems only they can help solve. Nothing gets done by putting the blame solely on white rich slave master descendants.
On a population or community level pull yourself up by your bootstraps is useless advice. Individually sure, get an education, work hard etc... But across a population, the disadvantages caused by systemic injustice create can't be solved by looking inward.
>My ancestors slaved on the peat mines, but I won't let that define me. It is not helpful at all.
This ignores the fact that discrimination didn't stop with the end of slavery. Until 50 years ago it was still legal to refuse to sell property to a Black person, and today Black people still have a harder time renting and finding employment specifically because of their race.
>I am ok if you say that policing should be about demographic parity, but not if you ignore the costs. By all means, send more police to rich white neighborhoods, to help affluent old ladies cross the road and rescue Persian cats from trees,
Policing by population density means this isn't really a problem, rich white neighborhoods have less naturally have less police presence because of lower population density.
>while gang violence rages in black neighborhoods and continues to ensnare young men
This is the go-to lament of the person unaffected by racism because it makes it looks like they care while costing them the least. You don't end gang violence long-term through law enforcement. We've tried that approach, and it the result is the largest prison population per capita on the planet, which just leads to more criminality, and the positive feedback loop builds. Unfortunately ending gang violence requires us to end systemic injustice, which will cost us quite a bit more than focusing cops on black neighborhoods.
>We all share responsibility to combat racism and disproportionate crime rates.
We do, and for those of us not affected by racism that means agreeing to pay the high cost of ending systemic injustice, not just personally pledging not to use the n-word.
Very droll, very droll. But US law is that even if your policy has no intended racial bias, if it ends up having one, it’s still illegal. And meat is mainly shoplifted by white women.
> But US law is that even if your policy has no intended racial bias, if it ends up having one, it’s still illegal.
Can you elaborate on this? As stated, it sounds not just inaccurate, but impossible: it reads like youre saying that any policy that doesn't result in a uniform (or proportional) racial ratio is illegal, which obviously isn't the case.
I think you're talking about disparate impact (as a legal concept), but this is 1) IIRC likotes to certain domains, like housing or employment and 2) avoidable if the racially-skewed policy is demonstrably related to the job (in the employment case).
As a trivial example, requiring a college degree for a job dramatically shifts the racial distribution of the candidate pool, and obviously isn't illegal.
If the shoplifting system is found to be illegal, AIUI, it would probably be because the case is made that it's _directly_ racially biased (disparate treatment).
Of course they will be racist and sexist... they'll probably have a log of race and sex of those they see. That information is probably useful to know your customers and learn what to sell; it seems useful.
Arguing against the mainstream position can even get your comment flagged. Doing it a few times (even about unrelated topics) will get your account banned for being "incendiary". HN is an echo chamber. But that's not surprising, all Internet communities are an echo chamber to some point.
That is your opinion. You'll find that many people disagree. Maybe not here, in HN, openly.