Why are we drawn to technology to tackle complex human issues?Why does it keep happening?David Lovell3 July 2020

NB: I have contacted the

authors for comment

Source: https://callingbullshit.org/case_studies/case_study_criminal_machine_learning.html

Why are we drawn to technologyto tackle complex human issues?

Be mindful of:systems that encourage a narrow world-view

• Research systems encourage us to develop deep disciplinary knowledge

• This has its risks…• Especially when specific knowledge has potential application outside its

discipline

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/technology/rabbit-hole-podcast-kevin-roose.html

…

Consider:Our limitations as thinkers• …and our capacity for critical thinking

Steven Pinker:

• The main cause of incomprehensible proseis the difficulty of imagining what it’s like for someone elsenot to knowsomething that you know

• The main cause of our incomprehension of othersis the difficulty of imagining how someone elsecan rationally see thingsdifferently to us

Acknowledgements

• This has been brief, incomplete and imperfect• I acknowledge my ignorance• I gratefully acknowledge my colleagues in the Data Focused Decision

Making program, especially• Kellie Vella, Dimitri Perrin, Margot Brereton, Andrew Gibson,

Catarina Pinto Moreira, Feras Dayoub

• I appreciate the Centre for Data Science, the Carumba Institute and the Queensland Academy for Arts and Sciences for hosting this

• I welcome your input: David.Lovell@qut.edu.au

Sources• Bartha, Paul. ‘Analogy and Analogical Reasoning’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited

by Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2019. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2019. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/reasoning-analogy/.

• Biddle, Sam. ‘Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features’. The Intercept (blog), 18 November 2016. https://theintercept.com/2016/11/18/troubling-study-says-artificial-intelligence-can-predict-who-will-be-criminals-based-on-facial-features/.

• ‘Case Study — Criminal Machine Learning’. Accessed 3 July 2020. https://callingbullshit.org/case_studies/case_study_criminal_machine_learning.html.

• Invisible Institute. ‘Citizens Police Data Project’. Accessed 3 July 2020. https://invisible.institute/police-data.

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• Harrisburg University. ‘Facial Recognition Software Paper Not Being Published’, 5 May 2020. https://harrisburgu.edu/hu-facial-recognition-software-identifies-potential-criminals/.

• Hashemi, Mahdi, and Margeret Hall. ‘Retraction Note: Criminal Tendency Detection from Facial Images and the Gender Bias Effect’. Journal of Big Data 7, no. 1 (30 June 2020): 40. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-020-00323-8.

• Hill, Evan, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Christiaan Triebert, Drew Jordan, Haley Willis, and Robin Stein. ‘How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody’. The New York Times, 31 May 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html.

• ‘HU Facial Recognition Software Predicts Criminality | Harrisburg University’, 6 May 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200506013352/https://harrisburgu.edu/hu-facial-recognition-software-identifies-potential-criminals/.

• THINKPolicy Blog. ‘IBM CEO’s Letter to Congress on Racial Justice Reform’, 8 June 2020. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/policy/facial-recognition-sunset-racial-justice-reforms/.

• MIT Technology Review. ‘Neural Network Learns to Identify Criminals by Their Faces’. Accessed 2 July 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/11/22/107128/neural-network-learns-to-identify-criminals-by-their-faces/.

• GitHub. ‘Qistudio/Ifn619’. Accessed 3 July 2020. https://github.com/qistudio/ifn619.

• Technology, Coalition for Critical. ‘Abolish the #TechToPrisonPipeline’. Medium, 29 June 2020. https://medium.com/@CoalitionForCriticalTechnology/abolish-the-techtoprisonpipeline-9b5b14366b16.

• MIT Technology Review. ‘The Activist Dismantling Racist Police Algorithms’. Accessed 3 July 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/05/1002709/the-activist-dismantling-racist-police-algorithms/.

• US Day One Blog. ‘We Are Implementing a One-Year Moratorium on Police Use of Rekognition’, 10 June 2020. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/policy/we-are-implementing-a-one-year-moratorium-on-police-use-of-rekognition.

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