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0 pointswongarsu4y ago0 comments

Computers can deal with fuzzy concepts just fine, the problem is that we don't want fuzzy answers.

Any reasonable way to get a computer to determine race will yield a fuzzy answer: based on your family tree you are 36% European, based on facial recognition the algorithm is 60% certain you are white, based on genetic sequencing you are 4% of African descent. All those are perfectly valid fuzzy answers.

If you then try to match those to ridiculous categories like "Black, not of Hispanic origin" it obviously goes wrong quickly. What exactly is "Black"? Does one Spanish great-grandfather disqualify you from that category? Or only if that great-grandfather was from Brazil instead of Spain?

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User234y ago

> What exactly is "Black"? Does one Spanish great-grandfather disqualify you from that category?

Interestingly you might get a very different answer to that question in Brazil than you would in the USA. I saw an interview with a Brazilian footballer that looked black to Americans sounding surprised when asked by an interviewer asked how racism affected him. His answer was, paraphrasing from memory, “what are you talking about I’m not black.”

Meanwhile race in the USA is of major political importance. It matters for college admissions, government loans and contracts, and so on. By and large it’s on the honor system. So far at least there haven’t been many white presenting Americans identifying as black or mixed race when their DNA test shows 4% African ancestry.

ZeroGravitas4y ago

> So far at least there haven’t been many white presenting Americans identifying as black or mixed race when their DNA test shows 4% African ancestry.

This used to be more common when it was legally enforced by the state.

See the fascinating history of "Walter White":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Francis_White

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