Tag: racism

Scientists Built an AI to Give Ethical Advice, But It Turned Out Super Racist

We’ve all been in situations where we had to make tough ethical decisions. Why not dodge that pesky responsibility by outsourcing the choice to a machine learning algorithm?

That’s the idea behind Ask Delphi, a machine-learning model from the Allen Institute for AI. You type in a situation (like “donating to charity”) or a question (“is it okay to cheat on my spouse?”), click “Ponder,” and in a few seconds Delphi will give you, well, ethical guidance. 

The project launched last week, and has subsequently gone viral online for seemingly all the wrong reasons. Much of the advice and judgements it’s given have been… fraught, to say the least.

For example, when a user asked Delphi what it thought about “a white man walking towards you at night,” it responded “It’s okay.”

But when they asked what the AI thought about “a black man walking towards you at night” its answer was clearly racist.

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Crowd-Sourced Suspicion Apps Are Out of Control

Technology rarely invents new societal problems. Instead, it digitizes them, supersizes them, and allows them to balloon and duplicate at the speed of light. That’s exactly the problem we’ve seen with location-based, crowd-sourced “public safety” apps like Citizen.

These apps come in a wide spectrum—some let users connect with those around them by posting pictures, items for sale, or local tips. Others, however, focus exclusively on things and people that users see as “suspicious” or potentially hazardous. These alerts run the gamut from active crimes, or the aftermath of crimes, to generally anything a person interprets as helping to keep their community safe and informed about the dangers around them.

These apps are often designed with a goal of crowd-sourced surveillance, like a digital neighborhood watch. A way of turning the aggregate eyes (and phones) of the neighborhood into an early warning system. But instead, they often exacerbate the same dangers, biases, and problems that exist within policing. After all, the likely outcome to posting a suspicious sight to the app isn’t just to warn your neighbors—it’s to summon authorities to address the issue.

And even worse than incentivizing people to share their most paranoid thoughts and racial biases on a popular platform are the experimental new features constantly being rolled out by apps like Citizen. First, it was a private security force, available to be summoned at the touch of a button. Then, it was a service to help make it (theoretically) even easier to summon the police by giving users access to a 24/7 concierge service who will call the police for you. There are scenarios in which a tool like this might be useful—but to charge people for it, and more importantly, to make people think they will eventually need a service like this—adds to the idea that companies benefit from your fear.

These apps might seem like a helpful way to inform your neighbors if the mountain lion roaming your city was spotted in your neighborhood. But in practice they have been a cesspool of racial profiling, cop-calling, gatekeeping, and fear-spreading. Apps where a so-called “suspicious” person’s picture can be blasted out to a paranoid community, because someone with a smartphone thinks they don’t belong, are not helping people to “Connect and stay safe.” Instead, they promote public safety for some, at the expense of surveillance and harassment for others.

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‘Racial Equity Team’ at Seattle Elementary School Cancels Annual Halloween Parade Because it “Marginalizes Students of Color”

A Seattle elementary school canceled its annual Pumpkin Parade because it “marginalizes students of color who don’t celebrate the holiday.”

The ‘Racial Equity Team’ at Benjamin Elementary school in Seattle canceled the parade and said students cannot dress up in costumes this year.

Instead, the children will participate in “inclusive” events like “thematic units of study about the fall” and reviewing “autumnal artwork,” the New York Post reported.

“There are numerous community and neighborhood events where students and families who wish to can celebrate Halloween,” a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman said in a statement provided to KTTH Radio talk show host Jason Rantz. “Historically, the Pumpkin Parade marginalizes students of color who do not celebrate the holiday. Specifically, these students have requested to be isolated on campus while the event took place.

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Bates College eyes revamping calculus, other math courses to focus on ‘colonialism and privilege’

A working group of professors and students at Bates College has recommended the school require all majors to offer two courses on “race, colonialism, white supremacy, power, and privilege,” according to a copy of the plan obtained by The College Fix.

In doing so, according to the group’s recommendations, each department could alter existing classes to fit the racial education requirements.

Bates College is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. It hosts about 2,000 undergraduate students, and the school estimates tuition and fees to be nearly $78,000 per year.

For instance, the group suggests courses like Math 105 (Calculus I) could “situate race, white supremacy, colonialism, power, and privilege centrally and attend to them throughout the course.”

If the plan is implemented, students would be required to take one introductory course and one advanced course centered on race. For example, STEM majors could satisfy the advanced requirement by taking “Math 233: Mathematics for Social Justice.”

The report recommends that in order to fulfill the racial education requirements, a math class must include “understanding how mathematical methods can expose racial and other injustices, and the role of mathematics as a gatekeeper and driver of injustice.”

In biology, a course must include “the context of a genetics course to understand the social construction of race, and the fact that there is nothing biological supporting these hierarchies and historical injustices.”

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‘Woke’ govt-funded London tour guide targets racist PLANTS, says botanical terms like ‘native’ & ‘invasive’ are offensive

A sightseeing pamphlet funded by Transport for London has claimed that the capital’s gardens and green spaces are filled with colourful colonial legacies and that many terms in botany, like “exotic”, are insulting and offensive.

The ‘Art on the Underground’ pamphlet guides visitors around the UK’s capital city through green spaces in Brixton and South London, focusing on the “colonial connotations” of British gardens and horticulture. 

The downloaded guide says it “addresses the legacies of the British empire” and looks “at gardens as places to consider injustice, oppression and colonial legacy” – rather than somewhere to simply enjoy plants and nature.

According to the pamphlet, many common plants found in the UK have “colonial roots” and reflect “racial slurs.” For example, the sightseeing map states that Wisteria’s problematic history is related to John Reeve, an East India Company tea inspector, who brought the plant to England in 1812. 

The East India Company “had its own armies to conquer and control territories in South and East Asia and plant collectors used East India Company ships and networks,” the pamphlet notes, adding that the slave-owning firm and its members were at the centre of importing seeds to Britain. 

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UCLA Suspends Professor for Refusing to Assign Grades Based on Skin Color

This is the state of American academia today: Gordon Klein has taught courses in business law, tax law, and financial analysis at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management for no fewer than forty years. He is a respected academic who has been on CNBC and quoted in the Wall Street Journal for his economic expertise. But now, after being suspended, he has filed suit in California Superior Court against the university regents over his suspension. Klein has a good case: He was suspended from teaching at UCLA for the crime of refusing to discriminate and treat his black students differently from how he treated others.

“I was suspended from my job,” Klein explained, “for refusing to treat my black students as lesser than their non-black peers.” His ordeal began on June 2, 2020, when “a non-black student in my class on tax principles and law emailed me to ask that I grade his black classmates with greater ‘leniency’ than others in the class.”

In a sane society, a “non-black student” who demanded that black students be graded with greater “leniency” than others would be castigated as a racist. But in the Left’s funhouse mirror ethics, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and treating students differently based on race is racial justice.

The student wrote to Klein: “We are writing to express our tremendous concern about the impact that this final exam and project will have on the mental and physical health of our Black classmates.” Klein believes that the student was using an online racial justice form letter: “There was no project in this class, and it was unclear to me who the ‘we’ in this case was. I suspected the student simply used a form letter he found online and neglected to change the subject.”

The letter went on to claim that black students were too traumatized by racism to do well on the final exam: “The unjust murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the life-threatening actions of Amy Cooper and the violent conduct of the [University of California Police Department] have led to fear and anxiety which is further compounded by the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the Black community. As we approach finals week, we recognize that these conditions place Black students at an unfair academic disadvantage due to traumatic circumstances out of their control.” It concluded: “This is not a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-Black students, but rather an ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with Black students in our major.”

Klein notes that “in a subsequent conversation with a university investigator,” the student who wrote the letter made it clear that he “intended that the requested adjustments apply to Black students and not the class generally.” To strengthen the case, the student invoked the Anderson School of Management’s “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” agenda, which stresses that a “commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion as fundamental to achieving Anderson’s mission.”

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It Begins: Black History Month Website Labels White People “Genetically Defective Descendants of Albino Mutants” in Taxpayer Funded Ads

As the UK celebrates its 34th year of Black History Month with a theme “Proud to Be”,  a taxpayer-funded advertisement featured on a prominent website labeled white people “genetically defective descendants of albino mutants”.

The Black History Month website that called white people genetically defective mutants has since deleted its anti-white propaganda after The Telegraph contacted them for a comment. It was later discovered that the website is managed by Ian Thomas, a white man. How ironic.

The campaigners are now distancing themselves from ‘loopy’ material on the website run by the white publisher according to The Telegraph‘s investigation team.

The website has a long history of promoting provocative and racist content against white people.

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ANOTHER HATE HOAX: Black Woman in Atlanta Accused of Pretending to be White Male Member of the Ku Klux Klan, Threatening Black Neighbors

Another day, another hate hoax.

Douglas County, Atlanta – A 30-year-old woman this week was charged with 8 counts of making terroristic threats in the Brookmont subdivision of Douglasville.

For nearly a year, Terresha Lucas left threatening, racially charged notes in black people’s mailboxes on Manning Drive.

Lucas, a black woman, pretended to be a white male member of the Ku Klux Klan and described herself as 6 feet tall with a long red beard.

“Residents on Manning Drive began receiving the notes last December from a person who claimed to be a white male member of the Ku Klux Klan, who threatened to burn down their homes and kill them, according to detectives with the Douglasville Police Department.” the police said.

“Instead, their investigation led them to Terresha Lucas, a 30-year-old African-American female, who was charged with eight counts of making terroristic threats this month. Accused of writing and placing the notes in her neighbors’ boxes, Lucas allegedly described herself as a six-feet-tall white male with a long, red beard who did not live in the neighborhood.” they added.

It was all a hoax.

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Matthew Dowd Runs for Office After Demanding White Christian Males Stop Running for Office

In 2018, left-wing extremist Matthew Dowd called for all “white male Christians” to stop running for political office. Today Dowd, who identifies as white, male, and Christian, is running for political office.

“We [white male Christians] don’t need to be the majority of the people who hold political power,” he wrote on this very day three years ago. Here’s more:

Instead of waiting for the diverse population of America to keep pushing and prodding, I would humbly suggest that we as white male Christians take it upon ourselves to step back and give more people who don’t look like us access to the levers of power.

[…]

Yes, let me repeat, we as white male Christians should do what real leadership demands and practice a level of humility which demonstrates strength by stepping back from the center of the room and begin to give up our seats at the table.

[…]

The greatest demonstration of strength is putting someone else ahead of ourselves. Let’s show we are that strong.

And that is precisely the kind of oily pandering that allowed Dowd to earn a cushy job as a political analyst at ABC News, where he was presented as a right-of-center analyst, as opposed to what he is: a  mewling, far-left beta male who makes Phil Donahue look like Robert Mitchum.

And on the third anniversary of that column, what is the hypocrite Dowd doing?

Well, the very white and not-terribly male Dowd is — lol — aggressively seeking a seat at the table by running for lieutenant governor of Texas.

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Hate Hoax: After Student Walkout Protest – Black Student Admits to Posting Racist Graffiti at Parkway Central High School in St. Louis County

Students at Parkway Central High School in St. Louis County held a walkout protest last Thursday after racist graffiti was found at the school last week.

On Tuesday School Superintendent Keith Marty admitted to parents the culprit was identified and that the student is black.

Yet, another hate hoax.

Local grifters participated in the rally.

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