There is more difficulty working with code such as

if x { //... } else { //... }

Than code like

if x { // returns from this block } // execution continues

In some legacy code I sometimes encounter very long chains of checks which nest 4-8 layers, which becomes very difficult to maintain a mental model of where you are in execution at any point. I try to refactor into the second pattern from above when possible.

The left can’t admit they’re continue not understanding voter IDs, it doesn’t mean we’re going to shut up until they’re implemented nationwide.

The intent is clearly to prevent entities from publishing clearly fake/ill-gotten reviews. The first amendment does not protect your speech when that speech is used to assist in committing another crime. The second amendment exists, but that does not give you carte blanche to shoot people (extreme example).

For a speech related example, see the Freeman v Giuliani case[^1], where the defense stated that they "have a first amendment right to lie," which was ruled to not be the case in defamation.

Also remember that there needs to be some measurable level of harm inflicted. A silly comment in this thread is unlikely to have any measurable level of harm, but cheating reviews may result in tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.

[^1]: APNews https://apnews.com/article/giuliani-2020-election-georgia-de...)

This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEXJmNj6SPk) was recently published which shows drivers being offered the same gigs, but different payment amounts. Note that I could not find a published version of the data they collected in this video.

That is not explicitly proof of wrongdoing, but clearly algorithmic price setting can be demonstrated as not always offering the same payment to the same drivers for the same work. There may be a valid reason to why this is the case, but as the calculation method is closed source, the individuals being offered the wage are unaware of why they would be paid less than their peers.

This is work that is often considered "low skill" - which should actually make it extremely cut and dry as to why an individual would be paid more or less. Are they making their pickups faster? Are their customers more satisfied? If that's the case, why would they sometimes be offered more money than their peers and sometimes less money?

Almost all workers here are price takers, and suffer greatly from the information asymmetry present. Companies hiding behind "oh but the algorithm says..." is a poor excuse for inequality.

Edit: Because discrimination is in the title of the OP, I feel the need to clarify: in no way is the above saying that the video posted is proof of discrimination. Inequality need not be discrimination. When there is inequality without any measurable source, we need to be skeptical of the reason. Maybe one driver has better customer feedback, therefore they get offered a higher wage. There are many logical explanations for the result, but Uber/Lyft do not seem to engage with the discussion. This should raise red flags. That does not conclude that they are discriminating against anyone, and that would be a poor conclusion to draw without a true investigation.

This isn't really abnormal. Every job does this by setting a wage they are willing to pay and seeing who signs up, knowing that person will now need to only be paid that wage. What is different is the scale and the frequency this is being done. Instead of doing this in a way that impacts a person once every job change, it now impacts them multiple times a day, and the data recorded is more detailed and can be acted on more directly.

None of this is discrimination against a protected class, but if there are any reasons one demographic might, on average, accept lower pay than another, it will lead to large scale discrimination.

The problem is that our common discussion on these topics is lacking the rigor, nuance, or depth to handle questions about this, and thus ends up with two large camps. One that looks at the methods, sees no obvious discrimination in the methods, and say it doesn't count as inequality. The other that looks at the outcomes, notices the clear difference in outcome this leads to, and calls it inequality. Both are, by their own metrics, correct.

Pink tax is an example of this happening, though on a scale needing far invasive technology than is currently available. It is presented as (big) discrimination even though it happens as price discrimination.

This is, um, potentially really bad. It’s several effects that already happen in, if you will, chunkier ways in our economy (especially in the US, with weak or absent unions and poor labor protection laws, compared to many other developed states) becoming applied at a much finer level of resolution (so to speak).

It is installed on gig worker phones and monitors the offered rates. When one worker is offered abusive rates, all other workers have their future offers filtered from view for some period of time unless it exceeds the typical offer by more than the amount the abused worker missed out on.

You say it's not discrimination, but you cannot definitively make that claim. That's the issue. Red lining isn't immediately discrimination against a protected class, but silently is it. This is not to say that Uber/Lyft are discriminating against a protected class - it's just that because of the lack of transparency we don't know that they are not.

This is a hard thing for people to accept, but we need to take a deep look at how we implement ML to classify things tied to individuals. It's very easy to de-humanize the humans affected by the systems we build, because "it's just an algorithm."

Is this not the case regardless of whether an algorithm is used or not?

Companies get a pass on job interviews because it's basically impossible to prove. But this doesn't make it ok, it just makes it less damaging than the remedy. (Or at least arguably, a lot of people do argue otherwise, and lots of people are looking for better remedies.)

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