Mastodawn

"Galton and his fellow eugenicist / protegee Karl Pearson were not directly involved in the development of early computational machines. But Galton’s foundational work with multidimensional modeling — a technique he used while measuring the attractiveness of African and European women — shaped Pearson’s thinking as he developed statistical tools like logistic regression, which is one of the fundamental components of modern machine learning."

https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/897923/ghost-in-the-machine-valerie-veatch-interview

The gen AI Kool-Aid tastes like eugenics

Ghost in the Machine — out on Kinema March 26th — director Valeria Veatch speaks with The Verge about gen AI’s roots in eugenics.

The Verge

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WesDym 1d ago

@timnitGebru I'm no mathologist, but this seems like a stretch. Is the argument that mathematics used or developed by crappy people is itself suspect for that reason? Is the math not able to be valid on its own, if it was developed or associated with crappy people?

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Mike Blake 🍉🇵🇸🇺🇦️‍⚧️1d ago

@wesdym @timnitGebru The main idea, that there's bias involved in the creation of mathematical concepts, is well documented.

“One of the biggest challenges is how hard it can be to start a conversation” about the problem, Sawyer says, “because mathematicians are so convinced that math is the purest of all of the sciences.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematics-confronts-its-white-patriarchal-past/

Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past

Mathematicians want to think their field is a meritocracy, but bias, harassment and exclusion persist

Scientific American

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WesDym

@mikeblake It sounds to me like some people are carelessly mixing indisputable realities of racism in humans who DO math, and frankly just plain bizarre notions that math ITSELF can be racist.

Mathematics is like physics. It's bound by the natural laws of the universe. It's not rationally possible for provable maths to be biased in any way. Math surely isn't even aware of human problems, or humanity, any more than the universe as a whole is.