An algorithm is just a method saved in a computer. It is neither good nor bad, or rather it could be good or bad depending on how well it works.
You’re going to need to do better than that for this crowd.
You’re going to need to do better than that for this crowd.
1) what are my rights, I.e. Against what constraints was the algorithm implemented?
2) "we have decided": who is "we", it's actually good that a particular entity is responsible for the output of the algorithm, computers can't be responsible for things.
3) is there appeal or human review?
If a bad algorithm is part of some process that affects me I'm going to ask what my rights are, who's responsible and where I can appeal, not the specifics of the algorithm.
Funny enough I read not that long ago about a case where an algorithm broke all those three points! Can’t remember where of the top of my mind, I think it was the Louisiana Prison board or something like that.
But never mind that, you are arguing against yourself so I’ll kindly step aside and let you at you.
They are not OP. Even if they are, why not just engage with the points they raise?
A set of rules followed by anything (including humans) is an algorithm.
Stories like this blame computers because that's easier on everyone's reputations than blaming the people who made the rules.
I've always wondered this about the many algorithms that keep getting used. They're being kept out of democratic decision making. It's always a committee somewhere in the executive that decides on the algorithm, not parliament, or any kind of elected board. They are implemented as a cost control.
https://www.windowscentral.com/british-government-reported-a... (previously discussed here; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30736887)
They are often just tools to perpetuate inequities in plain site.
They do not do this “inherently.” They don’t do it at all if they don’t have or create a feedback mechanism.
Problem is we have not automated the process of identifying and updating the assumptions for a given problem.
> An algorithm is just a method saved in a computer
No it isn't "just" that. It's quite a bit more specific than that.
For a sequence of steps to be an algorithm, it has to:
1. provably terminate, with—
2. the correct answer
(Every time, that is.)
Recommender systems and other programs created to help with things that have no correct answer belong to a class of procedures that are the exact opposite of what the word "algorithm" is supposed to communicate.
Anyone who has gotten paid to write something that involved the word "algorithm" in the last 10 years should give serious consideration to jumping off a bridge.