215: Gathering Data in Machine Learning with Abeba Birhane

01:41 - Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ (https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/AeonMagBirhaneDescartesWasWrongPersonsAreSocial2017.pdf)
* Abeba Birhane on a person is a person through other persons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0)
* Cartesian Thinking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0)
* Individualism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0)
13:59 - Predicting How People Behave and Act via Machine Learning is Ethically Flawed
* “Measuring” People
* Simon’s Ant (https://medium.com/@seannewmanmaroni/simons-ant-2c7693335ff9)
* Abstraction
* Greater Than Code Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (https://www.greaterthancode.com/category-theory-for-normal-humans)
* Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers (https://www.amazon.com/Order-Out-Chaos-Ilya-Prigogine/dp/0553343637)
* Collecting Data
* Confirmation Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)
34:21 - Examining Machine Learning Models and Data
* Means Testing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test)
* Generalized Empathy
“When you get rid of what you don’t want, you do not necessarily get what you do want and you may get something you want a lot less. It is that simple…..anyone that ever watches television knows that!” – Russell L. Ackoff (http://fearlessrevival.com/russell-ackoff/)
“Scoring” People Perpetuates Stereotypes
Acurracy Confirms Bias
50:09 - Important Ideosyncracies and Contaminating Factors
* Seeing and appreciating the potential to be different in every person in every situation.
* The ability to tease apart existing cultural ideas around identity and humanity.
* Taking concepts from different but related fields and seeing their connectedness and bringing them together into a whole that is more than the sum of their parts.
* Seeing consequences that don’t belong to any one cause.
Reflections:
Mando: Cartesian thinking and worldview is embedded in us.
Avdi: “Contaminating factors.”
“Dive into yourself to find yourself.”
Rein: Jainism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism) has gotten this right for centuries.
* The Elephant and the Blindfolded Men Parable
* The Theory of Conditioned Predication or Contigency
* The Theory of Partial Standpoints
Jessica: Giving the Cartesian program credit for what it’s good for: using science as a way to break things down into parts and studying them deeply; we’ve learned a lot.
Abeba: It’s not all bad. BUT, we forget to put the pieces back together and acknowledge reality.
This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode)
To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.) Special Guest: Abeba Birhane.

01:41 - Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’

Abeba Birhane on a person is a person through other persons
Cartesian Thinking
Individualism

13:59 - Predicting How People Behave and Act via Machine Learning is Ethically Flawed

“Measuring” People
Simon’s Ant
Abstraction

Greater Than Code Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng
Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers

Collecting Data
Confirmation Bias

34:21 - Examining Machine Learning Models and Data

Means Testing
Generalized Empathy

“When you get rid of what you don’t want, you do not necessarily get what you do want and you may get something you want a lot less. It is that simple…..anyone that ever watches television knows that!” – Russell L. Ackoff

“Scoring” People Perpetuates Stereotypes
Acurracy Confirms Bias

50:09 - Important Ideosyncracies and Contaminating Factors

Seeing and appreciating the potential to be different in every person in every situation.
The ability to tease apart existing cultural ideas around identity and humanity.
Taking concepts from different but related fields and seeing their connectedness and bringing them together into a whole that is more than the sum of their parts.
Seeing consequences that don’t belong to any one cause.

Reflections:

Mando: Cartesian thinking and worldview is embedded in us.

Avdi: “Contaminating factors.”

“Dive into yourself to find yourself.”

Rein: Jainism has gotten this right for centuries.

The Elephant and the Blindfolded Men Parable
The Theory of Conditioned Predication or Contigency
The Theory of Partial Standpoints

Jessica: Giving the Cartesian program credit for what it’s good for: using science as a way to break things down into parts and studying them deeply; we’ve learned a lot.

Abeba: It’s not all bad. BUT, we forget to put the pieces back together and acknowledge reality.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.)

Special Guest: Abeba Birhane.

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