[gbrown]

Blame the "left leaning zeitgeist" all you want, I've seen no such evidence. What I have seen is a Hacker News thread full of people misunderstanding statistics and machine learning, advocating for bad models, and obsessing about biological explanations for the crazy gender disparity in tech. Whatever real, fundamental differences exist, it's preposterous to assert that our current situation is entirely biological in nature - especially when the toxicity is on such full and self-assured display.

[stevenhuang]

> it's preposterous to assert that our current situation is entirely biological in nature

Careful on misframing the thought experiment: no such assertion was made. The assertion through this thought experiment was that biological nature has an effect, no more no less. The degree to which the effect matters is uncertain, but it is reasonable to expect it does play a role. The reason biological explanation is mentioned at all is because many seem determined to think that no such effect is possible, full-stop.

If you agree that biological differences has a non-zero effect on preference, then there shouldn't be anything to disagree with here.

[gbrown]

I disagree with your reading entirely:

"It may well be the case that the gender split is 80% / 20%"

That's a preposterous hypothetical. You're also incorrect in your implication - the existence of minor (and as yet unsubstantiated) fundamental differences in propensity to pursue technology in no way precludes the (well established) social biases and inequities that result in the same. Neither would it prevent these issues from being reflected in statistical models.

Thought experiments about magical perfect AIs are completely and totally irrelevant to this real problem which everyone who uses models should be aware of.

To get on my cranky, gatekeeping high horse, I find it super frustrating to see people who call themselves data scientists misunderstanding this problem. I teach this in introductory statistics to non-technical audiences. I'd hope for better from engineers and computer scientists.

[Excel_Wizard]

It's interesting that this thread is still going today, and I'm glad that it is civil.

Thought experiments are relevant because they can tease out our moral intuitions. Calling it a preposterous hypothetical is not useful.

gbrown- I think that you have read my original post with a hostile interpretation. I left open the possibility of biological differences in preferences OR zero biological differences in preference. You act as if there is scientific consensus that biological difference in preference is impossible, and that all current differences in outcomes are based on culturally-imposed biases. This is not the case.

>You're also incorrect in your implication - the existence of minor (and as yet unsubstantiated) fundamental differences in propensity to pursue technology in no way precludes the (well established) social biases and inequities that result in the same.

I or other posters did not imply this. You are conflating my hypothetical case (where cultural bias was made irrelevant as much as possible) with real life. Real life does have bias. The reason the hypothetical was presented was for comparison.

I've got a couple (low-ball, civil) questions as a sanity check- 1. Would you agree that men have a stronger biological preference to be warriors than women? 2. Would you agree that there is a greater cultural expectation for men to be warriors than for women?

[gbrown]

> Thought experiments are relevant because they can tease out our moral intuitions.

I understand this, but I don't agree that your thought experiment usefully does so. You're essentially begging the question: "Well, what if this is the way it's 'supposed' to be?". My understanding of the science is that there's little actual evidence of difference in fundamental propensity to enjoy certain types of intellectual labor, but lots of evidence of the impact of socialization on the development of young humans. As has been addressed elsewhere in the thread, we have a directly relevant historical example: the distribution of tech labor was quite different when computing was seen as "womens' work". To beg the question as you have, in the face of evidence to the contrary, is unhelpful. One can easily imagine the same hypothetical form applied to other groups - minorities, language groups, etc. While you've couched your argument in terms of "propensity", the structure works just as well (or poorly) for "ability" - and there's a long history in science and society of laundering the latter into the former.

> I think that you have read my original post with a hostile interpretation.

You are entirely correct - both with respect to the framing of your argument, and your apparent understanding of the methods discussed in the article. As to the former, you can't expect to receive a generous response when you accuse those you disagree with of being hopeless left-wing double thinkers. As to the latter, I'm not trying to be dismissive or condescending, but this is literally my area of expertise. I'm also an educator, and it is my responsibility to fight against explicit or implicit biases which affect my students (and which affect who is likely to become my student).

> I or other posters did not imply this. You are conflating my hypothetical case (where cultural bias was made irrelevant as much as possible) with real life. Real life does have bias. The reason the hypothetical was presented was for comparison.

Drawing the analogy between your hypothetical "perfect" system (which I maintain is still under-defined) and the actual problems being discussed is itself a misleading thing to do. There is not a meaningful analogy between (AI/ML/Stat) as practiced today and "perfect" AGI systems.

> 1. Would you agree that men have a stronger biological preference to be warriors than women?

Maybe, though I actually think this framing is problematic. "Warrior" is a social role, and changes in definition and scope over history and geography. Certainly there exists physical sexual dimorphism with males tending to be stronger and larger, if that's what you're asking.

> 2. Would you agree that there is a greater cultural expectation for men to be warriors than for women?

Sure, I think that's reasonable, subject to the previous caveats. Without evidence, I don't know that I'd immediately assume this will continue to be the case as physical ability has less and less to do with conflict - especially over the long term as we continue to evolve physically and socially.

To conclude, my understanding is that we have strong evidence of social structures influencing vocation choice and success. We have little to no evidence that suggests our current social organization with respect to intellectual labor is driven by primarily biological phenomena. In this context, I believe that trying to invent hypothetical scenarios which would justify (by their construction) current inequalities, in the face of evidence to the contrary, is a harmful act. Not only is it scientifically unfounded, it's part of the cultural problem. This kind of discourse creates exactly the environment which would serve to push women away from tech.

[Excel_Wizard]

I havent dove into evidence much during this discussion, but I agree that it is a good place to argue from. (I would tend to echo a good few Jordan Peterson-style points, such as gender employment ratios in scandinavian egalitarian countries, differences by gender in OCEAN personality factors, etc). I do think there is substantial evidence that personality trait differences between women and men correlate highly across the globe. This should add up to substantial (although not conclusive) evidence that preferences would also be different between genders. Conclusive evidence is impossible without having some hypothetical cultureless test case. I also believe that social science as practiced today is poorly equipped to conclusively answer these questions. Any individual must therefore decide for themselves what their predictions would be on a number of gender-related issues.

"Given an unbiased society, would I expect an equal number of male and female bricklayers?" I would not.

"Given an unbiased society, would I expect an equal number of male and female biologists?" I would not.

"Nurses?" I would not.

For almost any given profession, I would expect an unequal number of workers by gender. To the degree that the observed ratio differs from what I would predict, there lies the surprise. Computer programming is a strange activity, and shares enough in common with other male-dominated engineering fields that I wouldn't be surprised that it is equally male-dominated.

One of the reasons I think that programming is such a tilted activity is that it is a really weird activity. By what strange circumstance did monkeys descend from the trees to formalize logical constructions into software? Given how strange it is to adapt biological creatures to this task, you would expect outliers to participate in the task- it is not unusual to expect the personality differences between genders to dominate in who participates, when the outliers are the only individuals who participate to start with.

Regarding the warrior example- I would argue that even if we all fought wars with robots, such that physical stature was irrelevant, men would still self-select to become warriors (robot-pilots) more often than women. On the OCEAN model, men are less agreeable than women, and across the most cultures of the world, men are more agressive than women. This will likely remain true for millenia.

I'm presenting most of my arguments here amorally. I think the reason you moralize my arguments is that they are construed as justifying existing oppression by gender. I do my best to judge individuals as individuals. I cannot pretend to deny the existence of larger patterns while judging an individual, but I can understand that they will influence my judgement no matter how hard I try. To pretend otherwise is blinding myself. To the degree that I broadcast these opinions, I hope to do so in a way that leads people to only judge other groups in accordance with the predictive power such judgements can actually afford, to hold such judgements weakly, and to always understand that variation between individuals is critical more than anything else. My manner of thinking does risk failing to fight the good fight against oppression- however, I think most injustices in the world are cases of individual conflict, and tinting the daily conficts I resolve on a daily basis with overtones of wider societal struggle does more to confuse than clarify.

My main remaining question to you- if you take my last paragraph in good faith- is whether you think that my manner of thinking can yield good results.