It would seem that his conclusion is warranted absent evidence to the contrary, the difference is too large to explain in ways that make any sense.
I think even if two people have their property in common (and if the algorithm even knows about that), it is still not unreasonable to believe that there is a higher probability of the one with higher income paying off his or her loans.
The implication in citing their joint filing status is they submitted identical incomes. They have the same address, assets, and she had a better credit score. She is also a woman.
If she applied first, she might have gotten the big chunk, and he might have ended up with the tiny chunk.
Or it might be that the algorithm training data was just biased against women, which is entirely possible as well.
The black-box-ness, even to employees, of course, is a huge problem.
i have 3x the pay of my wife but she pays always on time and i get overdue notices because i forget or don't care.
Well, if you know a better way to get the relevant facts without throwing a fit on social media until hopefully a state AG takes note, then maybe we’ll all do that next time instead.