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Denian (denian@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 04:30:51 JST Denian
@skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva I am TELLING you that it's IMPOSSIBLE to influence, no matter HOW biased you are, because it's too complex for anybody to be ABLE to manipulate it. I also showed you one place where you can learn about it, yourself, and there are lots of other places to do so. If you refuse to do so just so you can stay willfully ignorant and pretend more bias makes the impossible possible, I can't help you.

In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 04:30:51 JST from chaos.social permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 04:30:50 JST Paul Cantrell
  in reply to
  @Denian @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  I don’t know if hearing it from a computer science prof with 40-some years of software dev experience will change your mind about anything, but almost everything you just said is wrong, just flamboyantly, fantastically wrong: the entire framing and most of the details too.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 04:30:50 JST permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:01 JST Paul Cantrell
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  @Denian @brianary @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  Suppose you build an uninsulated straw house here in Minnesota. Is it inherently built to freeze people to death? Show me where the refrigerator is built into the walls! You can’t!
  …except if you did build that house in Minnesota, then I would say either it is designed to freeze people to death, or you are very very foolish.
  Coding ML with no thought to how it will acquire bias is the same category of mistake.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:01 JST permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:02 JST Paul Cantrell
  in reply to
  @Denian @brianary @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  Yes. That is precisely why we have terms like “anti-racist.”
  It isn’t possible to even ask the •question• of whether something is biased without takingng into account its actual impact, which in turn requires taking into account the systems in which it functions.
  (If that we’re not true, then how could language contain bias? It’s just “pure” sounds and symbols, right?)
  As an example of having to take surrounding systems into account:
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:02 JST permalink
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  Briantosaurus Vex (brianary@mastodon.spotek.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:04 JST Briantosaurus Vex
  in reply to
  @Denian @inthehands @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  It's that absolute neutrality that is part of why the bad training data isn't mitigated. Neutrality favors entrenched power.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:04 JST permalink
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  Denian (denian@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:04 JST Denian
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  @brianary @inthehands @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva Basically neutrality is a bias on its own? I can accept that, but then where's the part that should be changed (if it was possible) - should it stop being neutral in order to avoid being biased?
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:04 JST permalink
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  Denian (denian@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:05 JST Denian
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  @inthehands @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva Please tell me how you program any part of a neural network (or any other machine learning algorithm, for that matter) not only what humans are, but what skin is, that it has a color, and that it shouldn't change said color, without training it. Or rather, do the opposite - make it actively racist without training it.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:42:05 JST permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:47:59 JST Paul Cantrell
  in reply to
  @Denian @brianary @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  Bias does also end up being more visibly expressed in code itself, of course. But it doesn’t have to be for software to end up being biased — in much the same way that software can be insecure without that insecurity being explicitly expressed in code, security and bias are both things that are meaningless without consideration of the surrounding system.
  Demanding to see bias apart from context is not even a well-formed question.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 05:47:59 JST permalink
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  Briantosaurus Vex (brianary@mastodon.spotek.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:14 JST Briantosaurus Vex
  in reply to
  @Denian @inthehands @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  We may have strained the limit of reasoning-by-analogy.
  Absolute neutrality reinforces existing power structures. If you choose not to mitigate that, or if you don't know how, that's an active decision to maintain the status quo. Maybe it's not a development that the world needs.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:14 JST permalink
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  Denian (denian@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:16 JST Denian
  in reply to
  @inthehands @brianary @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva But ok, say I'm building that house in Minnesota. I'm building it that way because it's the only type of house I ever built - the only type of house ANYBODY has ever built, in fact. There is no technology to build better houses. So why, exactly, are you expecting me to?
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:16 JST permalink
  
  Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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  Denian (denian@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:18 JST Denian
  in reply to
  @inthehands @brianary @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva I'm not building a house in Minnesota, though. I'm building a tent, selling it in Florida or Texas or some other place near the equator, and somebody's bought it and went camping in Minnesota.
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:36:18 JST permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:50:56 JST Paul Cantrell
  in reply to
  @brianary @Denian @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  We are indeed straining the limits of analogy…but since that’s my favorite pastime:
  Suppose we already have perfectly good ways of building homes, but then people discover straw
  and they claim straw will make homes cheaper
  and also drive cars and make movies and cure bunions
  and VCs pump gazillions into any startup who’s using straw for any damnfool thing
  and people think straw will let us live outside our bodies and be immortal or whatever
  
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:50:56 JST permalink
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  Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:52:58 JST Paul Cantrell
  in reply to
  @brianary @Denian @skye @SallyStrange @blogdiva
  and folks say “maybe we should figure out how to use straw responsibly, have some guidelines for this new tech”
  (like this: https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/public-policy/ustpc-approved-generative-ai-principles) and are ignored or accused of mass-murdering future babies
  and others say “JFC, people are going to freeze to death”
  and they get sealions in their mentions saying “I demand that you show me where there is a refrigerator in the straw! Show me!! Straw isn’t even cold!!!”
  and here we are.
  In conversation Friday, 21-Jul-2023 07:52:58 JST permalink
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