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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Could these legal arguments be extended to lookalike audiences that are built off of email lists that have a gender imbalance? That is, imagine I go to a university to recruit, and I talk with 200 male students and 10 female students. I then take their email addresses and make a lookalike audience to advertise my jobs to. Could that be challenged on the grounds that I am trying to advertise to male students? What if I don't know what goes into the algorithm of creating lookalike audiences — for example, how important gender is versus interests.

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The ad must have discriminatory intent [1]. So if you're selecting candidates with a black box ML model and you didn't explicitly include racial/gender preferences...

But "the algorithm was sexist, not me" is probably going to be a losing argument in any court case.

[1] Well, not entirely, but that's another can of worms.

Yeah, I was asking what the requisite intent is. Is it The intent to knowingly discriminate, intent to do the thing that is discriminatory (a lesser standard), or merely a disparate impact (which does not require any particular state of mind)?

Edited for clarity

Disparate impact (without valid justification) and discriminatory intent are both illegal.

Yes, easily because only thing that is necessary (in the US) is the disparate effect of your employment policies (edit: and the relevancy of those policies to the position being filled):

> The laws enforced by EEOC prohibit an employer or other covered entity from using neutral employment policies and practices that have a disproportionately negative effect on applicants or employees of a particular race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), or national origin, or on an individual with a disability or class of individuals with disabilities, if the polices or practices at issue are not job-related and necessary to the operation of the business. [0]

[0] https://www.eeoc.gov//laws/practices/

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