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Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by revelation on Saturday November 11, 2017 @03:49PM (#15678107)
Nobody needs heavy-handed censorship or directly intervene or override anything. A bureaucracy not run entirely by a computer is bound to be a failure because as long as there is some dude at the top with clearly expressed opinions those will find their way into decisions immediately.
Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by sidlls on Saturday November 11, 2017 @03:57PM (#15678152)
What makes you think a computer run system won't be subject to biases (in particular of the implementors)?
Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by revelation on Saturday November 11, 2017 @04:13PM (#15678234)
Bureaucracy isn't the promise of a system free of biases. The promise is that of a pure function: \forall a,b: a = b -> f(a) = f(b)

What's the point? The point is that there is a clear, rational audit trail for "why was this decision taken" with a computer system. You can challenge that. You can't challenge an overpaid gov admin whose primary motivating factor in making decisions is pleasing his superiors, no matter how removed.

Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by brianjoseff on Saturday November 11, 2017 @05:19PM (#15678494)
Highly recommend you check out the book "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil

Very accessible set of case studies where algorithmic management of traditionally human-run bureaucratic processes is biased and destructive.

Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by sidlls on Saturday November 11, 2017 @04:36PM (#15678312)
There isn't any meaningful difference between the kinds of challenges you present. It's given a facade of mathematical rigor, but it's still a facade.
Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by azernik on Saturday November 11, 2017 @04:04PM (#15678187)
I agree partially - I think it's easier to audit the biases an implementor has encoded into an automated system, especially since the pressures a high-level official exerts are often verbal and unrecorded.
Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by Ar-Curunir on Saturday November 11, 2017 @07:44PM (#15679043)
We can barely understand existing machine learning systems, what makes you think that we will understand those that run a global bureaucracy?
Re:H1-B Administrators Are Challenging an Unusually Large Nu... by azernik on Sunday November 12, 2017 @03:12AM (#15680151)
Machine learning systems by their nature design their logic without human intervention; a bureaucratic system encodes human rules in a way that a human programmer decides. cf a US college's system for signing up for classes, which is usually a one-to-one translation of preexisting bureaucratic procedure.