Sarah Mei on Twitter: "SHOCKED. I am SHOCKED that a company full of biased people who don't think they're biased wrote a biased algorithm.… "

@sarahmei

Software engineer & founder of @RailsBridge and @LivableCode. Currently stirring the pot at @SalesforceUX. She/her.

Twitter at the speed of parenting

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‏Verified account @sarahmei

SHOCKED. I am SHOCKED that a company full of biased people who don't think they're biased wrote a biased algorithm.https://twitter.com/danieljkelley/status/1161261463530614784 …

Daniel Kelley @danieljkelley

"One of the algorithms incorrectly flagged 46% of inoffensive tweets by African American authors as offensive. Tests on bigger datasets, found that posts by African American authors were 1.5 times more likely to be labelled as offensive. " https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614144/googles-algorithm-for-detecting-hate-speech-looks-racially-biased/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=75630474&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8zq4niBObVH51plBAjL7z9Z8PqtWQwXhTH9V2OGzI07kfpveDasz4uHhtTP4iRvLB1C9bsg7Y1IEJObPX4RaiR3bzu6Q&_hsmi=75630474 …

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11:23 AM - 14 Aug 2019

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9 replies 185 retweets 540 likes

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1. Ligerzero Gaming & Cosplay @ TwitchCon‏ @LigerzeroGaming Aug 14
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  Wow, it's almost like a group with no checks on their biases will express their biases in their code How many years have we been yelling about this now?
  
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1. (((David A. Black)))‏ @david_a_black Aug 14
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  Considering that African Americans saying “Stop shooting us dead for no reason” is considered offensive by lots of people, I’m not surprised.
  
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1. Jeremy Gutzwiller‏ @JeremyGutzy Aug 14
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  Weapons of Math Destruction is the book that comes to mind that touches on these “algorithms”
  
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1. Bob Allen‏ @CuriousAgilist Aug 17
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  In days of old there were "bubble sorts". Now we have "bubble perpetuating AI".
  
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1. K P ‏ @resolvingdust Aug 14
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei @KimCrayton1
  
  +1
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1. Júlio C. B. Gardona‏ @jcbritogardona Aug 15
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  This algorithm would not even have to exist. People should be able to say whatever they want.
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1. David A.‏ @dmatech2 Aug 15
  
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  Replying to @sarahmei
  
  If you look at the paper at https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~msap/pdfs/sap2019risk.pdf …, you'll see exactly what's happening. Different groups simply find different words offensive, and each group would need its own classifier.
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