The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

people are conditioned to make such leaps without understanding the issues on even a basic level.

But only the non-STEM trained people are culturally conditioned, of course.  STEMlords are above such things.

No one is immune form a deluge of misinformation, I think the last ten years have proved that conclusively.  It's just easier for STEM people to see how much of a nonsense the misinformation about their field is.  I'm sure they believe plenty of commonly accepted nonsense about fields outside of their expertise, however, since critical thinking is no match against selectively-presented information.

[Valmy]

It definitely seems feasible that a lack of people from certain ethnic groups making facial recognition algorithms would mean the algorithms don't properly cover what they look for.

Well a lack of people from Asian backgrounds in those fields is not a problem at all, they are very over-represented considering their proportion of the population. Yet that is the problem you zero in on. How does that square?

And surely if there is any country eager to generate the best intrusive spy cameras that accurately recognize people it would be China. I think this particular spy camera concern is something we need to fret over.

[The Larch]

I'm about to take a flight for the first time since the pandemic started! 

[celedhring]

I had some work to do that I've been putting off all day, and ended up watching Battleship Potemkin instead. My procrastination prowess is unrivalled.

[Josquius]

It definitely seems feasible that a lack of people from certain ethnic groups making facial recognition algorithms would mean the algorithms don't properly cover what they look for.

Well a lack of people from Asian backgrounds in those fields is not a problem at all, they are very over-represented considering their proportion of the population. Yet that is the problem you zero in on. How does that square?

And surely if there is any country eager to generate the best intrusive spy cameras that accurately recognize people it would be China. I think this particular spy camera concern is something we need to fret over.

That's the odd thing. They do work with Asians. In Asia. It was in the news a little while ago that Japanese vending machines were failing with white people.
For some reason in the west the are you squinting problem is coming up.

I note you just quoted one article of a bunch I posted there. The one that deals with a different issue to the main one being discussed.

Did I quote it out of context?  I thought the part that I quoted was self-contained, and I focused on it for the sake of brevity.

The blinking asian thing is curious as it comes from asian companies who you'd think would be used to this. A quick google doesn't give a definitive answer but I guess this came from the American wing of the company, building a product for the American market, and not bothering to properly test a diverse audience- perhaps even over-correcting pre existing asian software for the differences in white faces?

Again, this is so much speculation.  I don't expect you to know the technical reasons for this happening, but I'm just noting how people are conditioned to make such leaps without understanding the issues on even a basic level.  The article you linked made no connection to diversity (not that you can't find plenty of garbage articles that do), you have no special expertise or technical knowledge to make such a connection yourself, and yet you readily jump to that conclusion. 

I don't mean to single you out, you were the only one here to put yourself out there and present arguments while you were far from the only one to make such leaps, I just want to point out how natural it is to blame "lack of diversity" without having any understanding of how it affects anything.  A lot of nonsense thinking becomes engrained as common sense when you start with a conclusion and go from there.  Another ironic thing is that about 20% of American data scientists are Asian, which is a vastly greater percentage than their share of US population, and yet their presence didn't seem to prevent anti-Asian racism by cameras.

Yes. I'm just theorising on that one. As said the squinting Asian thing is a different issue to the main dark skin failures that were the main topic and it's a mystery to me precisely why it's happening technically though on an organisational level its pretty clear they didn't do their research right. They overlooked testing with Asian people with small eyes - a lack of Asian people in the room to say what about this problem is one of the probable causes of this.

I don't have much technical knowledge when it comes to cameras or nikons corporate structure but in user research and design thinking I most certainly do.
Diverse teams are well recognised as best practice in design and problem solving.
E.g.
https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/page/framework/principles/diverse-empowered-teams

https://www.itpro.co.uk/business/business-strategy/358043/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-do-diverse-workforces-do-it

[DGuller]

I wouldn't put any stock in what corporate PR departments put out.  Putting out empty "IG Farben has always supported diversity and inclusion" statements is in vogue these days, but somehow I doubt that many of the CEOs nominally behind such statements sing the same tune when they're playing golf in their private clubs and writing checks out to Trump 2020 campaign.  It's just part of the game now to pay lip service to diversity and inclusion, regardless of what you really think about it or what you actually meaningfully do about it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I had some work to do that I've been putting off all day, and ended up watching Battleship Potemkin instead. My procrastination prowess is unrivalled.

Too right! That film has been out for 96 years  !

[viper37]

Danish artist steals money from local museum and runs away

A Danish artist has pocketed 534,000 kroner ($84,000) in cash that he received from a museum to incorporate into an artwork and changed the name of the installation to "Take the Money and Run."

Jens Haaning had agreed with Kunsten museum, in northern Denmark, that he would borrow the money to replicate earlier work, Bloomberg reported.

But when the museum in Aalborg opened the box that Haaning had shipped, the cash was missing from the two glass frames and the artwork's title had been changed, according to the German News Agency (dpa).

"The work of art is that I took their money," Haaning told broadcaster DR.

Kunsten wants Haaning to return the cash, but he's declining. The museum is now considering whether to report Haaning to the police if he hasn't returned the cash by the time the exhibition ends in January.

[The Brain]

Lending money to people seems a weird activity for a museum.

[Josquius]

I wouldn't put any stock in what corporate PR departments put out.  Putting out empty "IG Farben has always supported diversity and inclusion" statements is in vogue these days, but somehow I doubt that many of the CEOs nominally behind such statements sing the same tune when they're playing golf in their private clubs and writing checks out to Trump 2020 campaign.  It's just part of the game now to pay lip service to diversity and inclusion, regardless of what you really think about it or what you actually meaningfully do about it.

This isn't what corporate PR departments put out.
Trying to smack corporations over the head to get them to realise this is the correct way of working is a key part of my job.
Definitely true a lot of ceos will nod along and pretend to accept it whilst continuing their top down waterfall ways. But that they at least have to pretend to be doing things right should tell you something. This is what forward looking companies are shooting for and due to the perfectly valid reason that it works.

https://blog.experiencepoint.com/8-stats-that-prove-design-thinking-pays-off
https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-design-thinking-works

[The Minsky Moment]

I imagine it's not helped by the demographics of the teams creating the models and data sets.

Also negation is actually pretty hard in NLP.

It's even less helpful to make problems with data science be about the demographics of data scientists.  Not only is it offensive, but it's also wide off the mark.

First of all, it is not offensive to suggest that a someone's personal background impacts on the way they think and do their job and that it is important to consider the effects that undisputable phenomenon may have in the context of a less diverse population of workers.  Data scientists of all people should understand and appreciate that fact, since data scientists have done much to help unearth the wide variety of cognitive biases that can affect people.  Pointing out and alerting someone to a possible cognitive bias should be welcomed not rejected as a breach of decorum.

Second I don't think it is that hard to conceive of scenarios where there is a real impact.  Survey design is an obvious one - the precise design and phrasing of survey questions, as well as how and when the questions are presented (and who delivers them) can have significant impacts on result.  Another area is any normative algorithm design that uses observations and data obtained from non-diverse populations.  For example, an HR algorithm that attempts to assist in candidate screening may be skewed if the algorithm was designed using normative exemplar drawn from a non-diverse population. 

[Zanza]

A 96 year old woman named Irmgard F. is currently prosecuted in Germany for being an accessory to murder of 11.000 persons in a concentration camp. She was the secretary of the camp commander. As she was a juvenile back then, it is handled under juvenile law as well. She lives in an elderly home and was not in jail awaiting her process. She wrote a letter to the head judge that she does not want to attend the case as she has many ailments. But they did not understand that as intention to flee. When police wanted to pick her up for the initial proceedings, they noticed that she is gone. There is now a warrant for her arrest.

[The Brain]

They didn't find out until now that she had worked at the concentration camp?

[Eddie Teach]

It took til now for the German people to be far enough removed from the reality of living under the Nazis to be comfortable punishing secretaries.

[Josquius]

Just what do you put on your cv in this situation? :HMM: