[Spooky23]

It’s already happening. Georgia had a anti-opioid program where they could score every pregnant woman in the state for likelihood to become dependent on opioids during pregnancy. Babies born with addiction cost the state about $1M each.

There were a few similar programs a few years ago when federal grants were made available. Iirc, they were modeled on the stuff built to identify people vulnerable to becoming extremist terrorist types. Insurance companies have databases of way more lifestyle and other behavior data than people realize. (Everything from sports, politics, to porn and gambling habits — anything for sale) I’m pretty sure Georgia mashed that against Medicaid claim data to build the model.

It’s a reason why we all need to watch “pre-existing condition” debates closely. If insurers know that 45 year old divorced father of 3 who moves every 3 months is a smoker, gambler and drinker, they don’t want to write a policy — the guy is a trainwreck with no support system.

[harlanji]

As a healthy homeless former professional working as a grocery bagger now, I can feel management watching me for signs of drug abuse to explain my ratty clothes and spotty hygeine. Nobody can guess why I’m not working a good job but seem very smart and thorough (slander from boss destroyed reputation). I’m glad to have a job and sorry to show up looking trashy, but it’s the best I can do right now. I am just thankful that they don’t have any data or scores for me yet to help them see a drug addict or boozer, because I know that I’d raise a lot of flags there and it’d be enough to color the suspicion. Metrics are scary, I know my current scores will make things harder for years to come, starting with credit having bombed right down to these corporate/insurer metrics whose systems I was in as a $200K/yr professional. Lots of explaining the data to do if I make it back to pro life.

[erikerikson]

Glad you're doing what sounds to be healthier.

I suspect many think differently here but I don't think the problem lies in the knowledge but in how people with power are currently using the knowledge. Restricting the knowledge is simply or current best mitigation of the current conventions. Another world might use that knowledge to better support you and others who have seen hard times and restore what sounds like a lack of justice and help you find an environment where you could thrive and perhaps even that boss of yours. [edit: so that they could thrive but also have reduced negative impact]

In other words, rather than focusing on mitigating risk a sufficiently high quality system could help us maximize our lives. Unfortunately, the probability of something so pro-social being the outcome seems low.

[syshum]

The biggest problem today be it credit scoring, Social media Censorship, or anything that is using these vast databases of personal info is the complete lack of transparency

Denied a loan, denied a job, kicked off a platform, in none of these situations is the company requires to justify their actions or be transparent in the policies and processes they used to reach that conclusion

This black box leaves people feeling powerless and out of control because they are.

One way to combat that is stronger data ownership laws, and the ability for people to get ALL information a company has collected about them.

So for example if you are denied a home loan, you should be able to request every single scrap of info that loan company collected about you (including any and all credit scores) they used to make that determination

[inetknght]

> The biggest problem today ... is the complete lack of transparency

While that's the biggest problem right now, transparency by itself isn't useful. I have transparency into my bills but I don't have the ability to change them. Negotiating power is being taken away from consumers. When's the last time you've seen anything which didn't have some form of liability limitation clause? When's the last time you've been able to negotiate that liability limitation?

[bsanr2]

"Fail fast and opaquely, good luck iterating ya bozo." Good advice, guys, thanks. /s

>So for example if you are denied a home loan, you should be able to request every single scrap of info that loan company collected about you (including any and all credit scores) they used to make that determination

The reason why that doesn't happen is because they're almost certainly discriminating in ways they shouldn't be.