Can Software Determine If Someone Is Racist or Violent?

rrroberts

rrroberts

New member
Came across another interesting IEEE article, thought I post its link here - figured people here would appreciate it more than some other boards.

We should have known this was coming from developments over the last 10 years or so.

http://theinstitute.ieee.org/opinio...are-determine-if-someone-is-racist-or-violent
Can Software Determine If Someone Is Racist or Violent?
A new employee background-check program scans social media for red flags
By MONICA ROZENFELD 2 February 2016

This software developed by Fama Technologies, performs a social media search looking for reasons for why an employer should not hire you (I wonder how similiar it is to the old pipl.org?). What I would like to know is if it can differentiate racism from criticism of the U.S. H1B (and similar) visa programs for example? Would it be able to scan posts made on Gigarank and connect them to a user (just using a hypothetical example only)? Could this be one possible reason why Facebook wants real identities?

How much online background checking is enough?
 
Yozora

Yozora

Moderator
That could be pretty scary, but if a person hasn't cleaned up any public social media accounts with their name by now, removing or making private anything they wouldn't want an employer to see, they might not get jobs easily anyway. The question is how reliably can the software detect these things, and if there are any false positives, as you mentioned.
 
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fouadChk

Member
rrroberts said:
Came across another interesting IEEE article, thought I post its link here - figured people here would appreciate it more than some other boards.

We should have known this was coming from developments over the last 10 years or so.

http://theinstitute.ieee.org/opinio...are-determine-if-someone-is-racist-or-violent
Can Software Determine If Someone Is Racist or Violent?
A new employee background-check program scans social media for red flags
By MONICA ROZENFELD 2 February 2016

This software developed by Fama Technologies, performs a social media search looking for reasons for why an employer should not hire you (I wonder how similiar it is to the old pipl.org?). What I would like to know is if it can differentiate racism from criticism of the U.S. H1B (and similar) visa programs for example? Would it be able to scan posts made on Gigarank and connect them to a user (just using a hypothetical example only)? Could this be one possible reason why Facebook wants real identities?

How much online background checking is enough?
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Excellent topic!...

My sense and without reading the paper (I may take a look at it eventually but not now) is a big OF COURSE that's why online anonymity is KEY. We leave so much of our selves in every sentence we write on forums and similar things that yes, if there is someone that can link that to you (the real world you) then he may own your guts if he know how to play you....

And I'm not even talking about the social media thingy here... that's just a major catastrophe for any way with some sense.....

Facebook (in particular) is a minefield and the kids that grow up with the Internet as a home commodity still don't get that... but the day will come when they'll learn it the hard way.
 
rrroberts

rrroberts

New member
fouadChk said:
rrroberts said:
Came across another interesting IEEE article, thought I post its link here - figured people here would appreciate it more than some other boards.

We should have known this was coming from developments over the last 10 years or so.

http://theinstitute.ieee.org/opinio...are-determine-if-someone-is-racist-or-violent
Can Software Determine If Someone Is Racist or Violent?
A new employee background-check program scans social media for red flags
By MONICA ROZENFELD 2 February 2016

This software developed by Fama Technologies, performs a social media search looking for reasons for why an employer should not hire you (I wonder how similiar it is to the old pipl.org?). What I would like to know is if it can differentiate racism from criticism of the U.S. H1B (and similar) visa programs for example? Would it be able to scan posts made on Gigarank and connect them to a user (just using a hypothetical example only)? Could this be one possible reason why Facebook wants real identities?

How much online background checking is enough?
Click to expand...

Excellent topic!...

My sense and without reading the paper (I may take a look at it eventually but not now) is a big OF COURSE that's why online anonymity is KEY. We leave so much of our selves in every sentence we write on forums and similar things that yes, if there is someone that can link that to you (the real world you) then he may own your guts if he know how to play you....

And I'm not even talking about the social media thingy here... that's just a major catastrophe for any way with some sense.....

Facebook (in particular) is a minefield and the kids that grow up with the Internet as a home commodity still don't get that... but the day will come when they'll learn it the hard way.
Click to expand...

Amen to your comment about kids on Facebook. One of many jobs I had since being "down-sized" was teaching part-time at a Community College. Many of the younger students just could not comprehend the concept of Internet anonymity and how Postings can bite you in the backside. The few that did, did not care.
 
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xMychaelSmithx

New member
I was not aware that this was a thing. But I can see good and bad in it. As is the case with most things these days. If you are working on a professional level and representing my company, I would want to know what your potential is on a good to bad slider. But at the same time, you could be tagged in a post that you miss or overlook and that could be a gag or something non related to your demeanor. But in the interest of a company, of someones livelihood, I say if you are applying for a job make sure you are polished.
 
rrroberts

rrroberts

New member
xMychaelSmithx said:
I was not aware that this was a thing. But I can see good and bad in it. As is the case with most things these days. If you are working on a professional level and representing my company, I would want to know what your potential is on a good to bad slider. But at the same time, you could be tagged in a post that you miss or overlook and that could be a gag or something non related to your demeanor. But in the interest of a company, of someones livelihood, I say if you are applying for a job make sure you are polished.
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One of my big issues with it is false positives - the system flags you as racist/violent due to misinterpretation. Obviously it involves natural language processing - a tricky proposition. There is the old AI legend of a rudimentary Cold-War era program that translated English to Russian, Russian to English. The phrase "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" was translated to Russian, then the Russian translation was itself translated to English. Result? "The wine is good, but the meat is spoiled".

Another issue - how far back does it go digging for posts? Hopefully one becomes wise with age and experience, and say to one's self "How could I have been stupid enough to say that?"

Last but not least, what about googlegangers (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=googleganger )?

And of course there is the privacy issue.
 
Yozora

Yozora

Moderator
Exactly, not to mention sarcasm & jokes. How often could it tell when someone is only kidding, I wonder. Would it need to be programmed to automatically discount words coming before a winking emoji?
 
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greboide

New member
i think its a bit far from now that we have real natural language processing tools able to identify if you are a violent person from what you say, like 10 years or so
 
Tytoowns

Tytoowns

New member
I think that this software could work but it would most likely have a lot of false positives. I see people frequently who use certain words and say certain things which a lot of people may concider racist or violent but infact they are simply joking about the sterotypes that currently exist. I think its more about how you treat other people more than what you say, although both are important. I mean for example, are you racist if you treat all black people differently or are you racist just because you said the N word.
 
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fouadChk

Member
starkiller07012 said:
No, it is easy to identify words like n***** etc, but it can't figure out what is truly racist. Most people can't do it either.
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Oh yes that's possible. Computers excels at finding patterns and given the raw data of what everyone is writing, the task becomes trivial.

Now I'm not saying that the profiling is(/can be) 100% accurate--given all the subtilities of the human mind--but it should be close. Even more, they can identify people who are racists but in denials (and there are plenty of those around.)

No one is perfect :)
 
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fouadChk

Member
rrroberts said:
Earlier someone mentioned Trump - now there is a flaming example of racist/sexist (sorry to any U.S. board members who support Trump). Some of his speeches reminded me of Judenfrie from WWII.
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As a non-US citizen, and being one of those that Trump wants to ban from getting into his country, I would say that I see him as an amateurish politician demagogue that wants to get elected at all cost to the limit of being a clown. Nothing that guy says make sense to anyone with a brain between his ears.... But I won't be surprised if he gets elected in the end... we already had G. W. Bush, right?
 
Yozora

Yozora

Moderator
That's a really good point about the changing nature of racism/sexism. While calling something "gay" or "retarded" was generally considered fine in the 90s, nowadays a lot of people realized that those words, used as insults, are hurtful to certain groups of people, and stopped using them. At one point I'm sure it was considered fine to use the N-word, but now we don't. In a sense, it's nice that society is becoming a little more welcoming for groups who were historically discriminated against.
 
rrroberts

rrroberts

New member
It is true that Western societies have push the politically correct attitude to its extremes but the core of the issue is really a common sense one.

That is so true - especially a little more common sense is needed along with the ability to not view things in the most negative frame of mind possible.

Thanks for the give and take.
 
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fouadChk

Member
rrroberts said:
It is true that Western societies have push the politically correct attitude to its extremes but the core of the issue is really a common sense one.

That is so true - especially a little more common sense is needed along with the ability to not view things in the most negative frame of mind possible.

Thanks for the give and take.
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My pleasure, @rrroberts.
 
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