Re:Machine learning is fundamentally conservative
by moduspol on Saturday January 04, 2020 @10:13AM
(#21955268)
> more gray-area correlations that force us to confront broader systematic prejudice in an uncomfortable way
Or, perhaps we discover that correlations don't necessarily point to systematic prejudice, and continue to argue over which correlations are more indicative of prejudice than others.
Some point at the proportion of women in top software engineering job and claim prejudice in hiring. Others point at the hiring pool for top software engineering job and disagree. And around and around we go. Machine learning won't solve that.
One likely outcome is that increased usage of ML will lay bare more gray-area correlations that force us to confront broader systematic prejudice in an uncomfortable way. Now whether we make material changes based on these discoveries or whether we leverage our significant ability for post-hoc rationalization to paper over the cognitive dissonance is another question entirely.