Technology

was written in a period when NLP practitioners are producing bigger (# of parameters; size of training data) language models (LMs), and pushing the top scores on benchmarks. The paper itself was controversial because it led to Gebru being fired from Google, following disagreements with her managers on conditions (withdraw, or remove Google-affiliated authors) for publishing the paper. A lot changed since mid-2021, when I initially wrote this page....

The lack of explanability is a common theme. Higher-ups claim the machine is unbiased, while the workers on the ground say, “It’s not me; it’s the computer”. Automating Inequality: How High-tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor should be an enlightening read. Computers Can Solve Your Problem. You May Not Like the Answer The algorithm had four guiding principles: Increase # of high school students starting after 8am Decrease # of elementary school students dismissed after 4pm Accommodate the needs of special education students Generate transportation savings Unprecedented opposition to the algorithm’s solution....