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Using an association between features to make a prediction about something, rather than measuring the thing itself, is exactly what’s meant by “prejudice.” Even when the associations are real and the model is built with perfect mathematical rigor. ML is categorically unsuitable for government decisions affecting lives.

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You seem to think this level of prejudice for prediction is wrong. Why?

If someone has killed 12 people, being prejudice about their chance of killing another and using that to determine the length of a sentence seems reasonable.

Even with something like a health inspection. Measuring how they store and cook raw chicken is about predicting the health risks to the public eating it, not about measuring the actual number of outbreaks of salmonella. And even if they were to measure the previous outbreaks of salmonella and use it to prediction the future outbreaks, that is still two different things.

I understand and agree with the outcry around using ML areas like criminal justice, but there are some really compelling examples of ML being used by governments to help citizens[1].

[1] https://www.kdd.org/kdd2018/accepted-papers/view/activeremed...

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