Been seeing too many dumb arguments on my timeline about whether an algorithm that's racially biased by data is the fault of the algorithm or the data. Not seeing enough introspection on how structural racism in tech propagates harms against black people and how to change it...
Could the algorithms be adjusted to be less racially biased? YES! Could the data be adjusted to contain less racial bias? YES! It is a *dumb* argument because BOTH THINGS ARE SOLUTIONS. Can we talk about how tech can do better now?
If you are one of these "is it the data or the algorithm?" people, whether you are aware it or not, you are diverting energy away from an important discussion about real harms to real people to a pointless discussion of semantics.
This is a common behavior when people are confronted with the idea that a culture they care about and are involved in is racist. It moves the discussion from an uncomfortable conversation about racial bias to a more comfortable one about technical details.
People have been using this tactic to avoid discussions about anti-blackness for hundreds of years. The US founders punted on the question of whether black people were people, and thus deserving of the full rights and protections of constitution, by making the 3/5ths compromise.
Talk about turning a race problem into a math problem! So, if you're encountering a lot of strong pushback over this rhetorical manoeuvre about whether it's the algorithm or the data, it's because in 2020, nobody has time for you to catch up to the conversation.
