Bias in Criminal Risk Scores Is Mathematically Inevitable, Researchers Say
▻https://www.propublica.org/article/bias-in-criminal-risk-scores-is-mathematically-inevitable-researchers-sa
The racial bias that ProPublica found in a formula used by courts and parole boards to forecast future criminal behavior arises inevitably from the test’s design, according to new research.
The findings were described in scholarly papers published or circulated over the past several months. Taken together, they represent the most far-reaching critique to date of the fairness of algorithms that seek to provide an objective measure of the likelihood a defendant will commit further crimes.
Increasingly, criminal justice officials are using similar risk prediction equations to inform their decisions about bail, sentencing and early release.
The researchers found that the formula, and others like it, have been written in a way that guarantees black defendants will be inaccurately identified as future criminals more often than their white counterparts.
The problem, several said in interviews, arises from the characteristic that criminologists have used as the cornerstone for creating fair algorithms, which is that formula must generate equally accurate forecasts for all racial groups.
The researchers found that an algorithm crafted to achieve that goal, known as “#predictive_parity,” inevitably leads to disparities in what sorts of people are incorrectly classified as high risk when two groups have different arrest rates.
“’Predictive parity’ actually corresponds to ‘optimal discrimination,’” said Nathan Srebro, associate professor of computer science at the University of Chicago and the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. That’s because predictive parity results in a higher proportion of black defendants being wrongly rated as high-risk.
It is as if you were playing chess : pour apprendre à jouer aux échecs
▻http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/itisasifyouwereplayingchess
Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate
▻http://www.tor.com/2012/10/03/most-citizens-of-the-star-wars-galaxy-are-probably-totally-illiterate
Class Advantage, Commitment Penalty
▻http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122416668154
Research on the mechanisms that reproduce social class advantages in the United States focuses primarily on formal schooling and pays less attention to social class discrimination in labor markets. We conducted a résumé audit study to examine the effect of social class signals on entry into large U.S. law firms. We sent applications from fictitious students at selective but non-elite law schools to 316 law firm offices in 14 cities, randomly assigning signals of social class background and gender to otherwise identical résumés. Higher-class male applicants received significantly more callbacks than did higher-class women, lower-class women, and lower-class men. A survey experiment and interviews with lawyers at large firms suggest that, relative to lower-class applicants, higher-class candidates are seen as better fits with the elite culture and clientele of large law firms. But, although higher-class men receive a corresponding overall boost in evaluations, higher-class women do not, because they face a competing, negative stereotype that portrays them as less committed to full-time, intensive careers. This commitment penalty faced by higher-class women offsets class-based advantages these applicants may receive in evaluations. Consequently, signals of higher-class origin provide an advantage for men but not for women in this elite labor market.
Clash of Clans banned in Iran after suggestions game causes ’tribal conflict’
▻http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/288464/Clash_of_Clans_banned_in_Iran_after_suggestions_game_causes_tribal_confli
▻http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news/2016/Dec/288464/clash of clans.jpg
The Year In Video Game Paintings : les tendances 2016 des peintures qu’on voit dans les jeux vidéos
▻http://kotaku.com/the-year-in-video-game-paintings-1790382713
Into the Tunnels: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s Rebel Enclave in the Eastern Ghouta
►https://tcf.org/content/report/into-the-tunnels
Let’s Talk About How We Talk About Science
▻http://jxyzabc.blogspot.fr/2016/12/we-need-to-talk-about-how-we-talk-about.html
A while ago, Brian Burg commented on Twitter that he would like to see more discussion of marketing in academia. I decided I’d rather write a meta-post about how we need to talk about how marketing is affecting our evaluation of science.
Korean Air crew to ’use more force’ with unruly passengers
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38441521
ThreadTone
▻http://www.thevelop.nl/blog/2016-12-25/ThreadTone
Not too long ago I came across a piece of art made by Petros Vrellis. A piece of art that makes the engineer in me scream: automation. As can be seen below Petros uses a circular loom and a lot of patience to develop portraits from thread. Below I’ll quickly go through the steps of automating the process but of course all the credits go to the artist behind this amazing idea! The final result is a halftone representation of an image using nothing but thread.
Beware Pokemon users
▻https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2016-December/077243.html
There was a video uploaded to YouTube a couple of days ago that claims to show some possible evidence that Pokemon Go uses data from OSM to determine good spawn locations for Pokemon. There are also several threads on reddit under /r/TheSilphRoad that have similar claims. It is amusing to see their speculation and methods of testing their “evidence” which include adding a footway to OSM and then going out and playing Pokemon Go a couple hours later so see if it affected anything.
Anyway, the theory being proposed is that highway=footway features in OSM lead to increased Pokemon spawn activity. Also, nests are supposedly located inside of recreation type landuse areas (golf course, park, play ground, etc) This has led to some players attempting to influence the game mechanics by, for example, adding a bunch of footways around their house. While that is a relatively benign change, some others have taken to retagging paths, cycleways and even residential roads to highway=footway.
I have been watching any changesets that come in with the word “pokemon” in the changeset comments and have reverted a bunch of them. However I am worried about users who may not be using changeset comments so I thought I would at least let the wider community know that this is happening and if you see any odd reclassification of features to highway=footway, this is probably why. I have also seen some legit and useful edits so it isn’t all
bad.
Si pokemon go se sert vraiment d’OSM, quelqu’un pourrait potentiellement éditer la carte pour attirer des gens là où il veut, brrr...
J’ai un copain qui travaille au ministère de l’intérieur français et il m’a dit que ses collègues flics adoraient l’application ! C’est du pain béni pour tracer les gens.
The Legend Of Zelda Was Planned On These Sheets Of Paper
▻http://kotaku.com/the-legend-of-zelda-was-planned-on-these-sheets-of-pape-1790394811
A group of Google employees spent their ’20% time’ making Google Maps wheelchair-friendly
▻http://www.businessinsider.fr/uk/google-maps-is-now-wheelchair-friendly-accessible-20-percent-time-em
Les sales fayots, ils auraient le droit de travailler pour tout à fait autre chose pendant ces 20% et du coup ils en profitent pour travailler pour leur employeur. Qui nul doute va renchérir à son profit. Je me demande pourquoi d’ailleurs Google ne les a pas fait travailler sur ce projet dévolu aux personnes handicapées sur leur 80%.
Jargon from the functional programming world in simple terms!
▻https://github.com/hemanth/functional-programming-jargon
Why Are There Dead Birds on Victorian Christmas Cards?
▻http://hyperallergic.com/why-are-there-dead-birds-on-victorian-xmas-cards-in-progress
Survey: Men play games to compete, women play to complete
▻http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/287889/Survey_Men_play_games_to_compete_women_play_to_complete.php
This week, the consultancy’s focus is on why people of different genders play games, and the top takeaway for devs seems to be: men are most often motivated to compete, women most often want to complete things, and folks of non-binary gender are most motivated to play games in order to explore fantasies.
’RuneScape’ Has Survived For 15 Years By Never Forgetting its Past
▻https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/runescape-has-survived-for-15-years-by-never-forgetting-its-past
This is the shortest scientific paper ever published - and it had zero words
▻http://www.sciencealert.com/the-shortest-scientific-paper-ever-published-had-no-words
Rosen-blog: Cross Writing and Cross Reading
▻http://rosenbach.blogspot.fr/2016/12/cross-writing-and-cross-reading.html
Drug firms poured 780M painkillers into WV amid rise of overdoses
►http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms-poured-780m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses
No, I have no side code projects to show you
▻https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-have-side-code-projects-show-you-ezekiel-buchheit