When we say that "an algorithm is biased" we usually mean, "biased people made an algorithm." This explains why so much machine learning prediction turns into phrenology.

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Researchers with phrenological delusions ask machines to find statistical correlates of personalities or emotions, and machines dutifully provides them. It's high-stakes, machine-human collaborative apophenia, detecting patterns where none exist.

https://t.co/2b0IkQrI62

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Regrettably, this junk science gets published in respected journals. In 2017, @nature published a study by Stanford's Michal Kosinski claiming that machine learning could detect the facial correlates of homosexuality, creating an alleged AI gaydar.

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Unsurprisingly, Kosinski's study spectacularly failed to replicate. But as is so often the case, the blockbuster finding gets all the press, the careful replication work that calls it into doubt is roundly ignored.

https://t.co/J4rd6nLA4n

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Kosinski hasn't given up on AI phrenology. His lab's latest paper (published by Nature...again!) claims that he can detect political affiliation from social media photos.

https://t.co/kNPJ4vOwEr

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Spoiler: he can't.

What his system is most likely detecting is certain conventions in poses and expressions that are used in different political subcultures. Resting Karen face, basically.

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Unfortunately, this claim is being credulously reported in the tech press as true, even as the writer notes that this ML system barely outperforms random chance.

https://t.co/z1nkFFod3H

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Scientific racism has been with us for centuries. It's enjoying a renaissance today, driven in part by the neophrenologists of the ML world. They are the modern descendants of the caliper-wielding eugenicists of yore.

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To understand the genomic science that refutes all of this nonsense, you can read @AdamRutherford's brilliant, short, witty, vastly informative book HOW TO ARGUE WITH A RACIST. You'll be glad you did.

https://t.co/bPO3y5CzIX

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Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://t.co/ICebVcdH1f

CC BY:
https://t.co/5YJhpDj3vT

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Criti-Hype; Right to Repair is back for 2021; The free market and rent-seeking; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/pXnzoWKJn2

#Pluralistic

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Criti-Hype: Tech bros will settle for "evil genius."

https://t.co/OyiM1vUS8Y

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Right to Repair is back for 2021: Will Apple sabotage this one too?

https://t.co/3gcyEZQWfk

3/


The free market and rent-seeking: Unauthorized bread and poor doors.

https://t.co/7Ob6AdmkDz

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#10yrsago Diane Duane’s crowdfunded publishing experiment finally concludes https://t.co/qsRnZxiL8b

#10yrsago Inside Sukey, the anti-kettling mobile app https://t.co/puGNKw5XgF

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I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/


It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.

https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/

Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/

It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"

The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/

Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."

This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Dependency Confusion; Adam Curtis on criti-hype; Catalytic converter theft; Apple puts North Dakota on blast; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/Osts9lAjPo

#Pluralistic

1/


This weekend, I'll be participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention, where I'm doing panels and a reading.

https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ

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Dependency Confusion: A completely wild supply-chain hack.

https://t.co/TDRNHUX0Ug

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Adam Curtis on criti-hype: Big Tech as an epiphenomenon of sociopathic mediocrity, not supergenius.

https://t.co/MYmHOosTk3

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Catalytic converter theft: Rhodium at $21,900/oz.

https://t.co/SDMAXrQwdd

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