Liz O’Sullivan Profile picture
Jan 28, 2020 8 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Quote of the day at #FAT2020: Image
So far my key takeaway from this conference is that anthropologists are absolutely vital to this process. A call to “study up” is to contextualize a process by studying its situation within systems. Image
Our work (in data) is tangled in larger social and political struggles. Tendency is to gaze “down” focusing on the powerless for “social good”. It happens (as an example) when we try to study criminal tendencies rather than the bias of the policing systems that criminalize.
KEY POINT: all of this work [in AI] is based on data that is collected by powerful institutions. #FAT2020
Even judges fall victim to this perspective. We can make algorithms more “fair”, but why study the victims rather than the systems that put them there? It is a choice.
Also key point: so much of our assessments of these programs are limited. We are “outsiders” where much access is denied out of hand.
Solution to lack of access: they designed their own risk assessment algorithm. Don’t predict recidivism of detainees, predict instead whether a judge will make the “correct” choice of whether a detainee will re-offend. Great idea, great perspective. Very refreshing!
Slight correction: the tool predicts whether the judge will adhere to the Constitution. 🤦🏻‍♀️✊🏻

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More from @lizjosullivan

Jun 8, 2021
All the privacy news on Sidewalk says it’ll drain your battery, spend your data plan, expose you to hacking threats, all of this is true. But it misses the forest for the trees. Amazon in possession of a nationwide network gives them the power of a utility. With less oversight.
People sometimes forget that the original tech villains were the telecoms, and rightfully so. Sidewalk can’t wiretap your conversations* like the telecoms can, but that’s not the only way police have used them to put innocent people in jail.
newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
It wasn’t until 2018 that the Supreme Court said police need a warrant to access cell site location records. Will this decision apply to WiFi probes? Maybe? It was a narrow decision with Roberts as tiebreaker. Will it stop them from trying? Who knows. nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/…
Read 5 tweets
May 7, 2021
Kinda excited and kinda sad that in my short career as a tech activist, I can now, for the first time, throw up my hands and say “I’ve been talking about this for years!” 🤦🏻‍♀️
One of my most popular tweets, in fact, was about this. I don’t love sharing it bc some mild factual errors appear due to haste and lack of available info at the time, but for posterity, here it is. Every now and then it resurfaces in my mentions bc (surprise!) people DO care.
🌟Now with Fewer Errors🌟

Here’s why I’m still freaking out about Amazon Sidewalk (but not as much about Apple’s tags):

NOTE: There’s still plenty wrong with AirTags but I’ll let @FoxCahn do the talking here:

cnn.com/2021/05/05/tec…
Read 11 tweets
Sep 21, 2020
Did you know that Amazon Sidewalk can track you, even if you’re not logged on?

Last year, people called me paranoid for worrying about probe requests and Amazon’s mesh network, but here we are a year later and location tracking is now more clearly at the heart of the operation.
The more devices they sell into the world, the more complete a picture they’ll have of what’s in it; what we do, where we go, how we spend our time. Sidewalks talk to each other. And likely to all WiFi devices, with or w/o Sidewalk, in subtle ways.
theverge.com/2020/9/21/2144…
Most consumer tracking efforts through today have focused on the individual and their device. Amazon, however, seems to want to turn the physical world into an Amazon Go store with their sensors, microphones, and cameras aimed at everything we do. There is no opting out.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29, 2020
Me, getting ready to watch House anti-trust testimony:
My whole Twitter feed:
Congress, apparently:
Read 18 tweets
Jun 11, 2020
🚨🚨This should feel like winning but it feels more like a thinly veiled threat. @BradSmi says MSFT won’t sell FRT without federal law governing use. IN FACT, Microsoft has WRITTEN such a law, and their lobbyists are pushing it from state to state.🚨🚨 /1
thehill.com/policy/technol…
SURPRISE: their law sucks. Policy experts agree that, while there is benefit to requiring a warrant for the use of FRT, the MSFT-backed law has giant loopholes, allowing a vague definition of “emergency” to allow for continued rampant use of FRT unsupervised by the courts. /2
Microsoft and Amazon have BOTH pressured congress to unify privacy standards country-wide, because they want to undo the CCPA and local FRT bans in cities like SF, Oakland, and others proposed in NYC, Boston... the list goes on /3
Read 8 tweets
Jun 9, 2020
This is, without a doubt, my favorite algorithmic bias story of the year. There are so many errors here, I don’t even know where to begin...
1. In large scale automation cases like this one, you better be damn well sure your classifiers aren’t biased. Since this is an impossible task, (all models are biased) AT LEAST retain meaningful human oversight of the task at hand.
2. Don’t put robots in charge of news, end of sentence. Besides what happened here which is just normal ordinary AI racism, models can’t really detect propaganda, sarcasm, or intent... for all our sakes, don’t put robots in charge of news (PLEASE)
Read 6 tweets

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