What if these predictions and others like them are self-fulfilling prophesies?

Maybe someone is objectively less likely to pay back their loans, less likely to succeed in school and more likely to be arrested for a crime, but when those predictions end up forcing them to live in a worse neighborhood because they can't qualify for a loan in the better one, go to a worse school because they aren't expected to succeed in the better one and live with a higher police presence because they're more likely to be arrested, maybe those predictions aren't just predicting worse outcomes but are actually reinforcing them.

So should we use the algorithms to charge different races different interest rates? Or should we not use them. And address the problems you mention? Because in the previous comment it sounded like they wanted to use them with applause.

Using the algorithm is addressing the problems by not hiding them.

Should we legalize drunk driving, and address the problem by trying to solve alcoholism?

I think this would be more aking to banning drinking and drunkenness altogether. I don't think that went so well the last time we tried it.

And how do you propose we solve it?

If there's a systematic financial disadvantage experienced by black people, possibly as a result of racism, then continuing to financially disenfranchise them will hardly help, will it? Access to liquid capital is pretty critical if you want to make money, isn't it?

Judgement is notoriously self-fulfilling. The best way to keep someone poor is to treat them like a poor person. The best way to drive someone to crime is to treat them like a criminal. The best way to keep someone ignorant is to treat them like an idiot.

And how did 'give everyone a home loan never mind if they can't afford it' worked out in 2008?

Sometimes I do wonder if people who present the argument you just presented realize that that is exactly how we've been doing things, and it just keep making the problem bigger.

Maybe I'm too much of a romantic, but I still harbor hope at some point they will realize it and begin to contemplate trying something different.

We're not talking about giving loans to people who can't afford it. We're talking about giving loans to black people.

Nobody is arguing against fairly assessing an individual person's ability to pay off a loan - the issue at question is whether it's okay to use race as a statistical proxy for that.

Of course we should address those problems as we identify them. But solutions may take years, even decades, to take root. What should lenders do in the mean time?

> What should lenders do in the mean time?

They could start by not making the problem worse giving loans to people who can't pay them back.

Lobby politicians to outlaw discriminatory risk assessment just to maintain balance of power in the market?