english language question

Question

hi guys. would you help to understand the mean of this sentence???

"There’s another issue here. If an algorithm classifies someone as high risk and the judge denies them their freedom as a result, there is no way of knowing for sure whether the algorithm was seeing their future accurately."

now,i have two guess about the mean. tell me which one is true?

1-the judge denies the algorithm's result - and set the people free

2- the judge accept the algorithm's result - and denies (not accept) to set the people free

Answer 1

Hi Tomy,

Gabe is correct.

However, as a philosopher, I can't resist pointing out what a misleading sentence it is anyway!

Suppose the algorithm says I'm high-risk for doing X but the judge ignores the algorithm and sets me free. OK, so now ...

(a) If I do X, we're tempted to say "Aha! There's the evidence we were looking for! The algorithm 'correctly predicted' my future." Not at all. It predicted that I had a high probability of doing X, and I did X. This shows nothing (repeat, nothing) about the algorithm's accuracy unless we know much more. To see this, suppose it predicted that my 10 best friends would do X, and my 10 closest relatives would not do X, and the results were ... random? Then we'd have good reason to think the algorithm is totally useless, and predicts nothing (even when correct).

(b) If I don't do X ... same problem in reverse. The algorithm might be a superb predictor, but short of perfect. It could easily be wrong in my case but turn out right in all the others. (And even that wouldn't prove it's a reliable predictor - just give some evidence that it is.)

The bottom line: freedom or no, you can tell nothing from one case about what (if anything!) the algorithm is doing.

I know that wasn't your q but thought you might find it interesting!

Richard

Answer 2

Hi Tomy! Number 2 is correct—in this case, "denies" means "takes away". So the judge would be taking away their freedom (not setting them free) based on the algorithm's result. Hope this helps!