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Comment by wonnage | Hacker News Reader

re: COMPAS

> As noted above, a major criticism of COMPAS is that the rate of false positives is higher among blacks than whites [2].

Policing in America is racist. So anything that takes arrests into account (prior arrests, recidivism, etc.) will be in error as well.

The line you quoted misses a lot of context - the 'standard' is an algorithmic risk score with a single threshold. The paper mentions why having different treatment by race might have legal problems (e.g 14th amendment). So this standard is what we're stuck with. The paper asserts that it isn't fair.

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>Policing in America is racist. So anything that takes arrests into account (prior arrests, recidivism, etc.) will be in error as well.

This is really the clincher. If the algorithm is effectively aggregating multiple human decisions, it ought to correct for known biases in those decisions.

Shouldn't you just... correct the decisions?

>Policing in America is racist.

Citation needed. Cops visit black neighborhoods more, sure. But they do that because they commit vastly more crime. Which is the cause and which the effect?

It's also a lot more complicated than that. People throw out studies that blacks are more likely to be caught for drug crimes. But they are less likely to be caught for more serious crimes. Possibly because they trust police less and are less likely to volunteer as witnesses. E.g. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-underpolicing-of-black-amer...

>But they do that because they commit vastly more crime.

Citation needed

>The sun goes up in the morning.

Citation needed

It's would be difficult to have a discussion if you had to provide citations for every single well known fact.

Which is the more contentious statement?

A. Blacks commit vastly more crime.

B. The sun goes up in the morning.

When you make judgements about individuals based on their race and not their individual actions you're being racist. It's as simple as that. This is what the paper is looking at.

You can argue for being racist if you want but you can't say "it's not racist, because 'racist' is a word with bad connotations and I think what they do is good" without being called out on it.

>When you make judgements about individuals based on their race

No one is doing that. The algorithm does not take race into account. It's just an assertion that it uses other factors as a proxy for race. I've not seen this proven anywhere.

And indeed, if it were true, you would have to admit that blacks are more likely to be criminals. Even after controlling for all relevant variables. Which goes against the standard narrative that it's just socioeconomic status or whatever.

>you can't say "it's not racist, because 'racist' is a word with bad connotations and I think what they do is good" without being called out on it.

It isn't racist. And the word racist is becoming almost meaningless because how often you overuse it.

> Policing in America is racist. So anything that takes arrests into account (prior arrests, recidivism, etc.) will be in error as well.

Quite possibly - and if that were the case, it's certainly something to be addressed. As a non-American, I can't really comment.

But the paper doesn't really deal with that. It's saying that society should tolerate higher rates of recidivism amongst one racial group in the name of fairness.

I do understand the authors' thesis - I'm just saying that "fair" is a very subjective concept. I don't think many people will agree with the authors' definition.

> Policing in America is racist.

Citation needed. The fact that certain ethnic groups have problems with crime and violence can be attributed to the fact they grew up in single parent households, are less educated, and have less income than other ethnic groups, all things that contribute to a higher crime rate.

> The paper mentions why having different treatment by race might have legal problems (e.g 14th amendment).

I don't see how anti-slavery has anything to do with this. If you are convicted of breaking the law, as a citizen you will be subject to the same punishments as any other citizen.

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