Liz O’Sullivan Profile picture
Jan 29, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Next up, something I’m very interested in: bias in hiring algorithms. Can it be made better? #FAT2020 with @manish_raghavan we’re gonna find out.
Looking at vendors like HireVue and others, specifically all their publicly available information on steps they’ve taken to “de-bias”.
One in particular, a video interview platform, scores people on how they answer questions. This is bad, but it’s not the only bad thing in the space (ugh, lol). Another example grades your online behavior playing a little game....... to predict your job performance???
Also: question-based AI assessments. Personality tools, etc. There are a wide variety of tools out there, and a lot of variance. Important question: where does the data come from? (Always good to ask).
Love this: only some of these companies build custom models. So many products just use off-the-shelf things that are trained on some unknown dataset the company doesn’t have access to. (Great plan 🤨)
And now, their claims: “Yes, we know models are biased, but WE FIXED IT!” Good thing, too, because there are discrimination laws that can get you if you’re wrong... Creates legal liability but not necessarily explicitly illegal.
Recommendations: We Need Better Laws (this is the name of my next mixtape, jk).

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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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