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Comment by snidane | Hacker News Reader

Algorithmic justice is one of those problems where techies think that by applying algorithms and techniques du jour will somehow solve the problem. Unfortunately law is so complex nowadays that it is ridden with internal contradictions. Formalizing law would only reveal these. To change the system, a massive reduction of complexity of law would be required before any math could be applied on it with some success. But then if we simplified the law to make it comprehensible to mortals again, who would need any algorithms at all?

Relevant quote from Tony Hoare. s/software design/law/

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

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I don't think it is techies at this point - more hanger-ons marketers given the complete lack of requisite understanding or interest in it and pushing a solution based on how good it sounds instead of how well it works.

Even by the standards of machine learning which has often been guilty of following spurious correlations. Anyone who actually worked with it would laugh like an artilleryman hearing Aristotole's impetus theory because it is so obviously disconnected from reality.

I have cynically theorized it is deliberate "bias laundering" ever since I heard of a defacto classist British algorithm which included /garden size/ (yard in American sense).

There is literally no legitimate reason to include it in a reoffense risk as a variable. Even if they thought it somehow had a rehabilitative effect then ownership shouldn't be a variable when they can just turn them into upstanding citizens through yardwork!

>But then if we simplified the law to make it comprehensible to mortals again, who would need any algorithms at all?

Because automating simple systems is what software is great at. Why wouldn't you?

Because it is likely to enable us to go further us down the path to 1984.

Fucking with people's lives is something that should be done by a human that can see the bigger picture, not a bunch of code daisy chained together.

Even if humans are more wrong than the machines? Do we care more about justice or our humanity?

The argument for is that judges fuck with people's lives and judges are already unreliable. A simple ML system may have errors but could have less error than a judge. And there is evidence to that effect.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w23180

The machine will probably be very predictable so expect people working around it soon.

> Formalizing law would only reveal these.

Which would identify easy targets for lawsuits against the government and cases which would overturn convictions and lead to the massive reduction in complexity that you seek.

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