Re: There is a flip side...
More than that, people actually *want* biased results. I saw an interesting set of observations from someone who was working on targeted advertising. He said they had a horrible problem with racist results.
What seems to have actually been happening was that his software was identifying that individuals with string X set to W were more likely to click through on one set of ads and individuals with string X set to B were clicking on a different set. So they eliminated string x from consideration.
Next the software identified individuals with at least two of strings A, B and C set to one value as being more likely to click through on one set, and vice versa. And guess what, there was a strong correlation between having two of those 3 set and having string X set to W, and so it went on.
Gradually they eliminated every decision point that could be said to be racist. And their click through rate plummeted.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
