Dutch gov't wants to ban officials from using AI software

Re:Dutch gov't wants to ban officials from using AI software by jacquesm on Thursday November 16, 2023 @10:01AM (#38290368)

Yes, there definitely was and it wasn't so much driven by the tech itself as it was by the need to be seen to be doing something against perceived fraud by minorities which led to mass profiling and huge fall-out (and too little, in my opinion). It was effectively racism under a thin veneer of plausible deniability provided by technology.

Tech by itself can be bad enough, tech wielded to achieve nebulous goals without any consideration for the human side of the effects is outright dangerous.

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Re:Dutch gov't wants to ban officials from using AI software by em500 on Thursday November 16, 2023 @10:24AM (#38290680)

> by the need to be seen to be doing something against perceived fraud by minorities which led to mass profiling and huge fall-out

It was not only perceived fraud by minorities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand...

Most practitioners can tell you that naive anti-crime initiatives often end up targeting minorities. In many Western countries, minorities are significantly over-represented in crime and jail statistics (compared to the general population). Is that ipso facto racism or racial profiling?

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Re:Dutch gov't wants to ban officials from using AI software by jacquesm on Thursday November 16, 2023 @01:07PM (#38293132)

This is exactly the kind of thinking that caused this whole thing to spiral out of control.

The little bit of fraud that was uncovered did not justify declaring a very large fraction of the Dutch population as fraudulent. I'm kind of surprised that your takeaway is exactly of the kind that has been proven to be utterly wrong and counterproductive during this whole affair. Yes, what you are advocating for is racism and racial profiling.

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