Bias in search
… people are …
(A click — vs. link — version of the Bush GoogleBomb)
Joy Buolamwini on bias
Why? Sill true??
Can you find a “live” version of algorithmic bias now?
“Latanya Sweeney, Arrested? (1) Enter name and state (2) Access full background. Checks instantly. www.instantcheckmate.com”
(A click — vs. link — version of the Bush GoogleBomb)
Can you find a “live” version of algorithmic bias now?
See if you can discover any biases.
[W]idespread [M]ysterious [D]estructive
An algorithm often requires a model.
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nothing more than an abstract representation of some process, be it a baseball game, an oil company’s supply chain, a foreign government’s actions, or a movie theater’s attendance (O’Neil 2016, p. 18)
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we make choices about what’s important enough to include, simplifying the world into a toy version that can be easily understood and from which we can infer important facts and actions (O’Neil 2016, p. 20)
What’s the difference between baseball and law enforcement?
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Northeastern University executed one of the most dramatic turnarounds in higher education. Its recipe for success? A single-minded focus on just one list. (Kutner 2014)
. . .
[Scores] couldn’t measure learning, happiness, confidence, friendships, or other aspects of a student’s four year experience.
President Lyndon Johnson’s ideal for higher education “a way to deeper personal fulfillment, greater personal productivity and increased personal reward” didn’t fit into their model. (O’Neil 2016, p. 52)
. . .
Instead they picked proxies that seemed to correlate with success. They looked at SAT scores, student-teacher ratios, and acceptance rates… They calculated the percentage of living alumni who contributed money to their alma mater, surmising that if they gave a college money there is a good chance they appreciated the education there. (O’Neil 2016, p. 52)
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Colleges were like different types of music, or different diets. There was room for varying opinions, with good arguments on both sides. Now the vast reputational ecosystem of colleges and universities was overshadowed by a single column of numbers (O’Neil 2016, p. 53)
the Saudi university had contacted a host of mathematicians whose work was highly cited and had offered them $72,000 to serve as adjunct faculty (O’Neil 2016, p. 62)
A four-day “application boot camp,”… costs $16,000 (plus room and board)…. the high school juniors develop their essays, learn how to “ace” their interviews, and create an “activity sheet” the sum up all the awards, sports, club activities, and community work that admission officers are eager to see.
the college admissions game, while lucrative for some, has virtually no educational value (O’Neil 2016, p. 64-65)
[Colleges] had a commandment to maximize performance in fifteen areas, and keeping costs low wasn’t one of them…
Higher Ed ↑500% (4x inflation) from 1985–2013
to attract top students, colleges … have gone on building booms, featuring glass walled student centers, luxury dorms, and gyms with climbing walls and whirlpool baths (O’Neil 2016, p. 60)
Focus on cost and employment, which led to:
the government capitulated. And the result might be better. Instead of a ranking, the Education Department released loads of data on a website.
Think of it: transparent, controlled by the user, and personal. You might call it the opposite of a WMD. (O’Neil 2016, p. 67)
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With peers, write down three techniques for curbing “weapons of math destruction.”
What were your techniques for curbing “weapons of math destruction”?