Category: Economic Equality

Artificial intelligence is on the brink of a ‘diversity disaster’

~ mcequality

The consequences of this issue are well documented, from hate speech-spewing chatbots to racial bias in facial recognition. The report says that these failings — attributed to a lack of diversity within the AI sector — have created a “moment of reckoning.” Report author Kate Crawford said that the industry needs to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, and that the use of AI systems for classification, detection and predication of race and gender “is in urgent need of re-evaluation.”

Indeed, the report found that more than 80 percent of AI professors are men — a figure that reflects a wider problem across the computer science landscape. In 2015 women comprised only 24 percent of the computer and information sciences workforce. Meanwhile, only 2.5 percent of Google’s employees are black, with Facebook and Microsoft each reporting an only marginally higher four percent. Data on trans employees and other gender minorities is almost non-existent.

via Artificial intelligence is on the brink of a ‘diversity disaster’

Senate bill would ban deceptive data collection by internet giants

~ mcequality

If American legislators have their way, tech companies will have to face more than negative publicity if they collect your data in a less-than-sincere fashion. Senators Mark Warner and Deb Fischer have introduced a bill, the DETOUR Act (Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction), that would bar internet firms with over 100 million monthly active users from tricking you into handing over personal data. Companies wouldn’t be allowed to develop interfaces with the “substantial effect” of preventing you from making an informed decision. They also wouldn’t be allowed to divide users into groups for experiments without consent, and couldn’t develop compulsive experiences targeted at kids under 13 years old (such as auto-playing videos).

via Senate bill would ban deceptive data collection by internet giants

Katie Bouman: the 29-year-old whose work led to first black hole photo | Science | The Guardian

~ mcequality

Katie Bouman was a PhD student in computer science and artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when, three years ago, she led the creation of an algorithm that would eventually lead to an image of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, some 55m light years from Earth, being captured for the first time.

via Katie Bouman: the 29-year-old whose work led to first black hole photo | Science | The Guardian

Senate bill would make tech companies test algorithms for bias

~ mcequality

The senators saw this as a civil rights issue and pointed to recent incidents as examples. Facebook is still facing a charge of housing discrimination after it let advertisers exclude people in ways that could be racist or sexist, while Amazon shut down an automated recruiting tool after it was found discriminating against women. Facial recognition also has bias problems. It’s a modern form of practices like “real estate steering” (where black couples were discouraged from getting homes in some neighborhoods), Sen. Booker said, but more insidious as it’s “significantly harder to detect.” In theory, this would prevent companies from ignoring the potential for bias.

via Senate bill would make tech companies test algorithms for bias

Silicon Valley revolt: meet the tech workers fighting their bosses over Ice, censorship and racism | US news | The Guardian

~ mcequality

The Slack engineer who got thousands of tech workers to pledge not to build tools that target Muslims and immigrants
The election happens. The next day at the Slack office, people were quite literally sobbing in the cafeteria. I was mostly keeping my shit together until my parents called from Canada. I went into one of the little phone booths and just sobbed on the phone. It took a bit of time to grieve, but then you also have to act. The space that Maciej1 created in Tech Solidarity was incredibly important. To show up at that first meeting at the Stripe offices and see hundreds of other people who are figuring out what the hell to do next was incredibly gratifying. “Oh, Joe who works over at the security team at a text-editor company actually cares about the fate of Muslim people in America.” There were lots of pleasant surprises like that.

via Silicon Valley revolt: meet the tech workers fighting their bosses over Ice, censorship and racism | US news | The Guardian

Public sex banned in two New Orleans gay bars investigation

~ mcequality

Two New Orleans leather bars known for their cruising scenes have been hit in recent months with charges, fines, and a shutdown in sexual activity (which is barred in public venues by Louisiana State Laws). Some have assumed that the impositions on Phoenix and Rawhide 2010 have been politically motivated, perhaps the result of a homophobic witch hunt (“an attack on one of us is an attack on all us,” read a message posted by Phoenix management on the bar’s Facebook in February), but a recent article in New Orleans LGBTQ magazine Ambush paints a more nuanced picture of investigations arising from direct complaints that are the result of community in-fighting and sexual discrimination.

via Public sex banned in two New Orleans gay bars investigation

Pay Gap Between Men and Women Might Be Worse Than Previously Calculated

~ mcequality

Today is Equal Pay Day, the day on which we acknowledge that a woman would have to work a full fifteen months to earn what a man in an equivalent role makes in a year. Since the wage gap is 80 cents to the dollar—that is, a woman earns 80 cents for every dollar a male peer earns—it takes women until April 2 to earn what men make between January and December. Many women of color have to work even longer to catch up to both their white male and their white female peers.

However, a recent study suggests that we might have to push Equal Pay Day a few more months down the road. As Vox reports:

“The commonly used figure to describe the gender wage ratio—that a woman earns 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man—understates the pay inequality problem by leaving many women workers out of the picture,” authors Stephen J. Rose, a labor economist and fellow at the Urban Institute, and Heidi I. Hartmann, the founder of IWPR and an economist in residence at American University, argue in their report, titled “Still a Man’s Labor Market.”Specifically, it leaves out women who have dropped out of the labor force temporarily, often to care for family.

via Pay Gap Between Men and Women Might Be Worse Than Previously Calculated

Debt crisis warning as poorest countries’ repayment bills soar | Business | The Guardian

~ mcequality

Debt repayments by the world’s poorest countries have doubled since 2010 to reach their highest level since just before the internationally organised write-off in 2005, campaigners have warned.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) said a borrowing spree when global interest rates were low had left many developing nations facing repayments bills that were forcing them into public spending cuts.

Plunging commodity prices, a stronger dollar and rising US interest rates had combined to increase debt repayments by 85% between 2010 and 2018, the JDC said.

The bid to reduce the unaffordable debts of the world’s poorest countries was prompted by grassroots activism in the late 1990s and early 2000s, first with the Jubilee 2000 campaign and then with Make Poverty History.

But the financial position of many developing nations has again deteriorated in recent years.

via Debt crisis warning as poorest countries’ repayment bills soar | Business | The Guardian

Inheritance tax loopholes allowing super-rich to pay lower rates | Business | The Guardian

~ mcequality

The UK’s super-rich pay half the rate of inheritance tax paid by the merely very rich, according to an analysis of HMRC data that throws fresh focus on how billionaires’ advisers use a “kitbag” of tricks to reduce heirs’ tax bills.

Estates worth £10m or more paid an average of 10% tax to the exchequer in the 2015-16 tax year compared with an average 20% tax paid by estates worth £2m-£3m, according to data released by HMRC following a freedom of information request by asset manager Canada Life.

The law states that estates should pay 40% tax on assets above £325,000 – or above £450,000 if the family home is given to children or grandchildren. But Neil Jones, the market development manager at Canada Life, said the richest of the rich often did not pay anywhere near that rate because they had access to “a myriad of potential solutions in an adviser’s kitbag to help mitigate IHT [inheritance tax]”.

via Inheritance tax loopholes allowing super-rich to pay lower rates | Business | The Guardian