Suppose you'd never heard of this study, and some conservative institution announced a finding that names associated with males (Steve, Darnell) were more likely to bring up ads mentioning arrest records than names associated with females (Emily, Latisha). Suppose the paper announcing this discovery was full of terms like "discrimination" and "fairness," and speculated about who or what was to "blame" for treating men in this discriminatory way.
Would the politically enlightened consider this increased association of men with arrest records (vs women) to be unfair bias against men? Would there be a call for a followup to determine whether it was a biased algorithm, a discriminatory corporation, or our entire anti-male sexist society that was to blame? Might they shrug it off, placing most of the blame, not on the ad system, but on the statistical behavior of men themselves?
If there is, as I suspect, a similar "bias" against men in this ad system, then any discussion of how to "fix" it should not address the question of black/white names. It ought to deal with the larger question of what to do when the data show that the probability of X given name 'A' is greater than the probability of X given name 'B'.
Comments
Suppose you'd never heard of this study, and some conservative institution announced a finding that names associated with males (Steve, Darnell) were more likely to bring up ads mentioning arrest records than names associated with females (Emily, Latisha). Suppose the paper announcing this discovery was full of terms like "discrimination" and "fairness," and speculated about who or what was to "blame" for treating men in this discriminatory way.
Would the politically enlightened consider this increased association of men with arrest records (vs women) to be unfair bias against men? Would there be a call for a followup to determine whether it was a biased algorithm, a discriminatory corporation, or our entire anti-male sexist society that was to blame? Might they shrug it off, placing most of the blame, not on the ad system, but on the statistical behavior of men themselves?
If there is, as I suspect, a similar "bias" against men in this ad system, then any discussion of how to "fix" it should not address the question of black/white names. It ought to deal with the larger question of what to do when the data show that the probability of X given name 'A' is greater than the probability of X given name 'B'.