[jomamaxx]

The fact that African Americans, on average, might be significantly less likely to be creditworthy - is not racist per-sey, it's just a fact.

But denying someone credit on the basis of their race is probably racist.

Why? Because having 'black skin' does not make you less credit worthy. It's a correlating factor.

In fact - the 'dangers of stereotypes' are exactly that: making prejudiced decisions based on race etc..

Creditworthiness should be established on the basis of your job, job type, income, education, history of making payments etc..

There's no way on earth it's moral or fair to deny credit because someone is black - in the same way it's ruthlessly unfair to convict someone of a crime because they are black and 'theoretically more likely to have committed crime'.

I'd argue that this is the basis for the systematic racism that exists in the system, and that we have to get over.

And I'm not a pro-PC guy - by far. I'm not even very cool with affirmative action. But we need to treat people as individuals, not stereotypes.

[adrianN]

All the factors you listed are also just correlated with paying back a loan. You'd be hard pressed to find something truly causal, human brains are pretty complex.

[jomamaxx]

Having a job vs not having a job + savings is pretty close to 'causal' when it comes to determining the ability to pay back a loan :)

Far, far more so than skin colour :) which is absolutely not causal.

I agree with your point theoretically, but pragmatically ... not so much :)

[adrianN]

And a smart ML system would correspondingly put a lot more weight on those variables than on race.

[jomamaxx]

A smart ML system wouldn't put any weight on race. Because we know it's not causal. Also - it's probably illegal, and surely immoral.

[jomamaxx]

"Does the existence of gray disprove the notion that black and white are colors?"

Black and White are colours.

People who we commonly describe as 'Black' are not the colour 'Black'.

Tell me - which Black person on planet earth is the 'definitive Black' which equates to '100%' Black.

Barack Obama is 'mostly Black' on one side, 'mostly White' on the other. But his father was from Kenya. Does this make his father 100% Black? Because there are much darker skinned people in West Africa.

Forget colour, it's confusing you. It's a metaphor we use, that is really quite useful colloquially, but not useful beyond that.

There is no such thing as 'perfectly Black' or 'White' genetically. It's just an array of genes. That's it.

There is strong correlation with some genes and some cultures. That's it.

[ebfe]

>Because we know it's not causal.

How do we know that?

[jomamaxx]

FYI - 'race' is a social construct that humans use which basically boils down to skin colour - not much more.

In reality 'African American' or 'Black' should not be though of as a 'race' - rather, as an 'ethnic group' - which is a collection of behaviours, ideals, attitudes etc..

Tell me, what 'race' is Barack Obama?

What 'race' is someone from Sudan wherein people look a mix of 'Middle Eastern' and 'African/Black'?

What 'race' are most Mexicans who have both Aboriginal and European backgrounds?

Genetically, obviously there are some differences beyond skin colour, but it's pretty impossible to pin down 'race' when talking about genes.

The dude doing your credit score is not going a gene test. He's looking at the colour of your skin.

It's insane to think that has anything to do with anything.

If anything 'ethnic group' would be a better correlation, but that's an impossible thing to determine in America.

It's also racist, and I don't mean this in a 'PC' left-wing sense. I mean it in the most basic sense. Which is why it's illegal.

[jomamaxx]

How do we know that skin-colour is not 'causative' to bad credit?

Are you really asking that question?