External algorithmic audits only incentivize companies to address performance disparities on the tasks they were publicly audited for
Microsoft & Amazon addressed gender classification disparity after audit, but still had huge performance gap by skin color for age classification
Audits have to be deliberate so as not to normalize tasks that are inherently harmful to certain communities.
Gender classification has harmful effects in both incorrect AND correct classification. Promotes stereotypes and excludes trans & non-binary individuals. 3/
Auditors need to consider the company's procedure/process, not just final performance on a benchmark.
Tax audits that evaluate a company's adherence to a compliance process (and not just submitted financial documents) led to better outcomes. 4/
Tension btwn representation vs privacy. Efforts to increase representation of marginalized communities can:
- lead to tokenism & exploitation
- compromise privacy
- perpetuate marginalization through population monitoring & targeted violence 5/
CelebSET as a benchmark should not be considered as a reward to game or a goal to strive for, but a very low bar not to be caught tripping over.
The humble goal of the algorithmic audit is to expose blind spots rather than validate performance. 6/
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Friends with no previous interest in AI ethics have been asking me about it recently, so I want to share several underlying concepts about AI & power that are important to understand. 🧵 1/
AI and Power: The Ethical Challenges of Automation, Centralization, & Scale
In Australia, automation was used to scale putting poor people into debt (often illegally). The govt went from creating 20,000 new debts PER YEAR to creating 20,000 new debts PER WEEK, many of them bogus, but hard for people to appeal. 3/
Rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, Multiple sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, Lupus, Hashimoto's, & Psoriasis impact a range of body systems, but all are autoimmune diseases.
Developing a lifelong autoimmune disease is often first triggered by an infection. 2/
Medicine is very siloed, and autoimmune diseases have often been treated in separate silos, based on which body system they impact, limiting our broader understanding of common threads. 3/
Even common viruses can have long-reaching, surprising, & devastating consequences. Fortunately, there are simple steps we can take to reduce transmission. 1/
The idea that a common childhood virus can quietly hang out in your nervous system, reactivate decades later to cause shingles, and then months AFTER shingles blisters clear up cause blood clots & strokes is mind-boggling to me 2/
VZV (chickenpox virus) is not just linked to strokes, but also linked to multiple sclerosis or vascular dementia (my note: possibly through reactivating other viruses).
After 12 years working as a data scientist & AI researcher, I have gone back to school for a Masters in Immunology. When I become fascinated by a topic, I want to learn as much as I can. 1/
My ultimate goal is to apply my machine learning & data ethics skills to immunology, but I want to make sure I fully understand the underlying domain & relevant context first. (With ML, it’s important to not just be a hammer searching for a nail). 2/
Immunology is a complex and vast field, full of open questions and not-yet-fully-understood phenomena.
Viral infections have been significantly associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s. 3/ cell.com/neuron/fulltex…
I made a mastodon account a few weeks ago: @math_rachel@mastodon.social (in case twitter falls apart)
I haven't used it yet and have mostly been taking a social media break prior to this. 1/
I used to post a lot on twitter (about machine learning, working in tech, algorithmic harms, & later covid). I loved this place and I learned a lot from others here. Thank you to those I met & learned from. (I plan to stick around, but who knows what will happen.) 2/
Being high-risk during an ongoing pandemic, not being able to safely access healthcare, seeing how many people I used to respect are going along with the erasure & destruction of disabled people-- all this has shattered my previous worldview. 3/
This is a thorough, incredibly well-researched explanation of the Qld government's unscientific & unethical pursuit of a "wall of immunity", which was doomed to failure before it had even begun. by @ColinKinner
Please watch the embedded video of Chief Health Office Dr. Gerrard. Note that when he repeatedly says that it is inevitable & necessary for us to all catch covid, he is speaking as someone with significant political power. 2/
Messaging from @qldhealth continues to focus on social distancing & hand-washing, even now in 2022. It has been known since 2020 that #COVIDisAirborne (we need high-quality masks & ventilation; 1.5m != safety), yet public health officials have still not updated their approach 3/