Hacker News Reader

Comment by snsr | Hacker News Reader

> independent academics found it can have a disparate impact on poor communities of color. A 2016 study reverse-engineered PredPol’s algorithm and found that it replicated “systemic bias” against over-policed communities of color and that historical crime data did not accurately predict future criminal activity.

That sounds like more than "bad press".

View on HN

How can someone who reverse engineers an algorithm know that they got it right?

If you actually look at the "study" it's clear that what they did was not particularly scientific. With such a broad and complicated topic, they basically just took the talking points they wanted to have about it and worked their way backwards from there.

In my opinion it really isn’t. Looking at the studies it references, they’re not much different from “press” anyways. They read like the questions and data presented were selected to prove a political point.

I’m not trying to just be ideological here either. I just don’t want the dominant ideology in academia and media to be used to attack and surpress technology that could ultimately benefit the communities they’re allegedly harming.

What about promoting technology that could ultimately harm the communities they're allegedly benefiting?

There’s really not any strong evidence to suggest that was happening. And you can’t test it because all it takes the accusation of racism and some pseudoscience and you’ll be shut down.

The closest thing to evidence referenced in the article is this study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2016....

It makes some weird comparisons. Why have the heat map of drug users? Police are much more interested in drug dealers, and particularly drug dealers who are likely involved in gangs and violent crime. Unfortunately, those individuals are over represented in minority communities, as are violent criminals more generally.

It also throws around phrases like "historically over-policed communities" without ever actually explaining what that means or why it occurred. There seems to be a general pattern of taking "systemic racism" and equating that to racial discrimination when the two are not the same. There are problems within minority communities which are significant in driving these disproportionate outcomes, and if we just say "racism" and don't look any further that isn't even going to be considered.

If we want to reduce mass incarceration of people for nonviolent crimes, we ought to be reforming the laws, not reducing enforcement just to produce conviction stats we like more. That will almost certainly get people killed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com