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Black prisoners are assigned harsher living conditions in Ontario jails—thanks to AI ⋆ The Breach (breachmedia.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 48 points 2 weeks ago

the province was aware its use of the software could disproportionately target Black prisoners, but went ahead with it anyway

Yep, sounds about right

[-] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

It's a *feature*

[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago

The Premiere named his daughters with the initials KKK. How many black Conservative MPPs are there?

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

...Because they could just blame it on the software.

[-] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 2 weeks ago

So far every use of algorithmic policing that has been reported has shown only to exacerbate the conditions caused by systemic bigotry.

Even in Canada, I have to assume the system is working as designed -- the racism is deliberate -- until proven otherwise.

[-] HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Neural nets are pattern recognition and repetition machines - nothing more or less.

If black people have historically been given harsher punishments by the criminal justice system (duh), any neural net is going to pattern match and print out a heavier sentence for a black person based on its training data.

[-] daggermoon@piefed.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I still fail to understand why people act like Canada is a paradise compared to the US.

[-] nyan@lemmy.cafe 24 points 2 weeks ago

Because "compared to the US" is a very low bar to clear these days.

[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago

It's also a paradise compared to living in a cess pit.

[-] daggermoon@piefed.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Give it a few years. You'll have your own Trump, don't you worry.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 7 points 2 weeks ago

compared to the US.

[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

If they statement is honest then you are as dumb as we all think you are

[-] daggermoon@piefed.world -3 points 2 weeks ago

I don't know man. Your country's genocide of it's native people went on way longer than it did in my country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_genocide_of_Indigenous_peoples?wprov=sfla1

[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Canada closed its last Indian boarding school in 1996 and issued an apology for their cultural genocide.

Can you guess when the US did? If you guessed they are still separating Native Americans from their families you would be correct.

The US killed so many more natives it isn't funny. Canada generally respected the treaties they signed while the US wiped its ass with them.

I am not excusing what Canada did, but you shouldn't try to compare them to the US.

[-] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

You would imagine they would trial these programs to see if there are massive flaws with them but that is probably to expensive.

[-] ryannathans@aussie.zone -3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

There's strong correlation in crime statistics for both severity and frequency of violent crime and being black

It is therefore not a surprise that feeding prisoner crime data, and not any race data, into a computer to determine prisoner risk has the same correlation between race and likelihood of violence

To reduce the rating based on their race would be discrimination by definition

[-] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 7 points 2 weeks ago

You don't seem to have read the article because the government admits that there are issues with racial bias and it's already attempting to mitigate that for indigenous people specifically, but not black people.

Whatever correlation may or may not be present should not be used to justify worse conditions. Worse conditions lead to worse outcomes so it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling issue. We do not know how these decisions are being made and that the problem. Even if race is excluded it could be using a proxy for race. There should be guidelines that apply to everyone or a panel that can be questioned and held accountable. AI cannot be held accountable in this way so it should not be making these decisions.

[-] darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

and it’s already attempting to mitigate that for indigenous people specifically

That's literally racial discrimination and shouldn't be a thing.

Even if race is excluded it could be using a proxy for race

AI doesn't care about race. It cares about achieving the mission statement.

[-] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

You almost get it. So very close.

[+] glowie@infosec.pub -6 points 2 weeks ago

Psst don’t call out facts, you’ll be downvoted

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 14 points 2 weeks ago

Nah, these facts are not the issue. Omitting that the statistics themselves are the result of discrimination is kinda negligent though.

The solution wouldn't be to try to balance out a bias in a fundamentally flawed dataset, but to establish a human system of decisionmaking that's resilient to prejudice and bias instead of relying on machines that can only imitate their makers' mistakes.

[-] Darkenfolk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

human system of decisionmaking that's resilient to prejudice and bias

Yeah, the human part is quite often the problem in such systems though.

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago

Unfortunately, yes.

A machine trained on human decisions isn't gonna make better decisions, and I'm not aware that a sufficiently advanced machine reasoning from principles instead of correlations exists yet. So as it stands, the best we can do is try to minimise the problematic aspects of humanity.

It's not a good solution, just the less bad one.

[-] darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Omitting that the statistics themselves are the result of discrimination is kinda negligent though

Is that the only reason? Or perhaps is there a cultural component to this?

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

You mean whether a people trapped in poverty, deprived of perspectives, desperate and frustrated by the injustice that continues to be done to them, develops a culture of violence?

Yeah. Probably. That's what centuries of slavery, segregation and wealth-gating social mobility will do to people: they get stuck in a cycle of poor conditions harming childhood development, leading to ill-adjusted adults struggling to get or hold good jobs, some of which will resort to other ways of making money.

https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/violence

https://www.opencrime.us/analysis/crime-and-poverty

Pretending it's a racial issue or a culture of violence is only half the truth. The other half is that it's an economic issue arising from a history of treating them as second-class citizens at best, at worst basing your entire government on the conviction "that slavery subordination to the superior race is [the black man's] natural and normal condition" and going to war over it.

[-] darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works -2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You need to get out more. Listen to what people who successfully got out of the ghetto say about the social difficulties involved with getting out. "Acting white" (e.g. reading) is frowned upon. Crabs in a bucket.

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, that divide exists and is reinforced by the identities tied to the status within those relics of a segregation that was never effectively dismantled.

Discriminatory policing isn't gonna help with that divide. Being prejudiced by someone's ethnicity has nothing to do with statistics. Humans aren't numbers or probabilistic distributions. We're individuals that deserve being judged by our actions, not the colour of our skin. My white isn't inherently more or less criminal than someone else's black.

Leaning on statistics to justify the actions that reinforce the root causes of those statistics is circular logic. It's not a valid justification for prejudice.

[-] darkwing_duck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

My white isn’t inherently more or less criminal than someone else’s black.

It isn't, and yet, for a randomly selected individual with white or black skin, the chances of each one in fact being a violent criminal are vastly different.

Does it suck? Sure. But that's how it is, there is nothing you or I can do about it.

[-] luciferofastora@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

the chances of each one in fact being a violent criminal are vastly different.

Reducing people to chances based on a single factor is deeply dehumanising. The statistics aren't wrong; the interpretation and application is.

But that's how it is, there is nothing you or I can do about it.

Individually, we can't do a whole lot. But we can do our part to break that cycle, to treat people as people and stop normalising or excusing racism.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Downvotes don’t do anything. If you really believe something is true, say it and defend it. Fuck the downvotes.

But if you can’t defend something, because you know it’s wrong, the only option left that saves face is to complain about downvotes.

We’re as anonymous as we want to be here though, there’s no need to save face. Unfortunately, realizing that they believe something not because it’s true, as they thought, but because it’s emotionally convenient is much harder for most people than just losing a little face.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026

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