Slashdot Mirror
Attorney Sues Website Over His Online Rating
An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that a local attorney is suing legal startup Avvo over a rating that was algorithmically assigned. The story covers the controversy of computers grading humans. 'Browne, who has participated in a number of high-profile cases in the state, including the defense of arsonist Martin Pang, said in an interview that Avvo is being irresponsible with the ratings and called them a fraud. And he questioned why Supreme Court justices and prominent lawyers score so low. Three other attorneys interviewed by the P-I also expressed doubts about the rating system, while News.com reported that the site "seemed to be riddled with bizarre errors."' Such practices are not new: the New York Times earlier this year reported on Google using algorithms to determine applicant suitability. But what happens when you don't like the result? Can a computer program be considered defamatory?"
If I use a hand-held calculator to get a result, and then publish it and that publication defames someone, I can't blame it on the calculator.
In this case, a computer is just another tool used to calculate something - perhaps a tool that many people don't understand as well as they should - but a tool nonetheless.
You use it, you take responsibility for the results. You don't understand how it works? Hire a consultant. The fact that it is a complex tool does not excuse you if you libel someone.
( NB: The above paragraphs presume that there is indeed libel, a fact not yet proven.)
Is it just me, or does it seem like there are a lot of legal professionals who normally have no problem applying existing law to novel situations but who turn into drooling idiots as soon as a computer program or computer network becomes involved?
Uh....
... } ?
switch (person.getSkinColor()) {
Well, if they made it clear to viewers how their ratings are calculated, they should not be responsible for harm done. In that case they would just be stating facts (e.g., rating = this lawyer wins X% of his cases - this lawyer charges %Y percent over the industry average for their type of cases...) But if they don't tell people where the ratings come from, then I wonder: how is writing a shitty algorithm that says defamatory stuff about people any better than just saying defamatory stuff about people. People are responsible for the computer programs that they knowingly use.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
I guess one could blame the programmer, not the program itself. And the above statement makes perfect sense in, let's say, a program that tries to calculate the risk of person.getName()'s chance of getting a certain disease.
If this comment doesn't get modded +5 insightful, I'm going to sue Slashdot.
Yeah, because nobody is ever falsely accused of rape and therefore anybody accused but not convicted is a rapist walking the streets...
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Seriously, can an algorithm be biased? YES! Very much so. Imagine if we had an algorithm that rated people on a 100 point scale. If your skin color is white you get 100 points to start with, black people get 0 points. That's biased.
Does that mean the company behind the algorithm is biased? Yeah again. In this case (not necessarily Avvo's case) this algorithm is blatantly biased, trying to rate people on their skin color.
Does this mean it's illegal? Not unless the law has changed. If he wants to litigate then he needs to prove the algorithm is biased (and a few anomalies doesn't mean it's biased, it means it has a flaw) Avvo has to be biased in such a way they are making a profit over the difference. Avvo has to be deliberating trying to damage someone's career for it to even be illegal.
If the algorithm is running correctly and there's no X factor (meaningless stastical values, such as the color of the skin) then there's no crime here. They might not have a perfect algorithm but they arn't claiming it.
If the lawyer in question wanted to fix this correctly, he should bring this to the attention of the site, point out numerous cases of people being graded too harshly and then publicize the data to the public if need be. From the sound of it, there's little to no proof except some lawyers feeling they are being treated unfairly. From the sound of it, that's sour grapes, there's no defamation.
Just because an algorithm is poorly designed it doesn't mean it's crap, errors happen even with great algorithm's first iterations. There's still a burden of proof on the lawyer and I'm not hearing any real proof yet.
So, if this attorney wins his lawsuit - does that mean I can sue FICO for my a credit rating?
actually they could just make the program run N times with N being sufficiently large, such as 5000 times, and show that statistically the program created a bias against women.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Yep, that'd be close, all right. Perhaps I meant injustices.
That would be the feds marching into California and swooping down on medical marijuana users based on a commerce clause argument that 100% intrastate commerce "could be" or "could have been" interstate commerce, and so the feds claim to have jurisdiction to screw with California law, legislators, and citizens. Which they do not. The ruling and the reasoning is sophist nonsense. The constitution says in sec 8, para 1 through para 3, that The Congress shall have Power To... regulate Commerce... among the several States. That's it. No more than that. It's an enumerated power, and there is no authority implied or specified that allows mucking about with commerce internal to a state. Furthermore, the 10th amendment makes the limit explicit: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. So there you have it. They have the authority to regulate intrastate commerce, but not interstate commerce. The court is out of line, and so are the feds.
That observation in no way precludes the fact that there are other ways to build roads, including ways that don't screw with people's properties at all. You can go under them; you can go around them; worst case, you can even go over them, though you certainly ought to pay for that privilege. It is wrong to steal, and it is no less wrong when the government does it.
The idea of "fair compensation" is intellectually bankrupt. If I own a piece of land, and I want to sell it, that is where it can be determined that it has a specific monetary value. The way that is done is that when you offer enough money to satisfy me, I'll let you have it.
If you don't, I won't. But if I own that property and for whatever reason, I do not want to sell it, then you cannot put a value on it that equates to "reasonable compensation." How do you compensate for my ancestors having raised generations there? How do you compensate for the view, or the fishing in my lake? How do you compensate for the fact that my brother died in that house, or that I was married there? Or that I built it by hand? Or that I lost my virginity on the living room couch?
The answer, of course, is that you can't, not that it is fair to use some number a bunch of people I didn't delegate my feelings and associations to invented based on their feelings. I'll tell you how it actually works: force and threat of force. Coercion. There isn't a reasonable step in the entire process.
Sure, I'll point the problem out. It is what we call blackmail, where one party is forced to do something it does not believe is legal, ethical or otherwise proper, by another party that wields a coercive force. I'll point something else out, too: the trust the people put in the government to build and maintain a general infrastructure doesn't include the presumption that said power will be used as a weapon, nor does it include the presumption that the feds won't build roads in some states, while building in others. The collection of taxes is (barely) tolerated with the idea that said collection is done for the common good, not in order to wield a coercive force on the states. The fact that the feds do wield such coercive forces is contrary to article 1, section 8 of the
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
About states rights, not everything in the constitution is written there.
Sure, but you at least need some wiggle room. You need to find, somewhere, some arguable limit on the federal spending power. An implied limit would be fine, a penumbral limit, fine, but so far I'm not seeing any support for it, nor are you showing me any.
The states have the right to set their own speed limit. The tenth amendment shows that since the federal government does not have the power to set a speed limit, the states get it.
That is absolutely right. The states can set whatever speed limit they want -- within some other limits, e.g. the commerce power would prohibit a 1mph speed limit on the interstate -- and the federal government can't stop them.
But that doesn't mean that the states can force the federal government to give them money. If the states want to fight with the federal government, then that's fine, but unless you can find something in the Constitution to help the states, the federal government doesn't have to spend its money with them. It isn't blackmail anymore than working at a job for wages is slavery. It is unequal bargaining power, but I don't see a remedy for that in the Constitution either.
. Only one thing is going to fix this, and that is a nice, dirty civil war. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but at this rate, it will happen soon.
I think that a civil war over the speed limit would be a stupider reason for going to war than Jenkin's ear, and only slightly less stupid than the pig. Get some perspective.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
It's an enumerated power, and there is no authority implied or specified that allows mucking about with commerce internal to a state.
Unless that commerce is interstate commerce despite remaining within the state. Honestly, your argument has lost since Gibbons, which was back in the 1820's.
That observation in no way precludes the fact that there are other ways to build roads, including ways that don't screw with people's properties at all. You can go under them; you can go around them; worst case, you can even go over them, though you certainly ought to pay for that privilege.
The funny part is that tunneling would 'screw with' the owner's property, as would building an elevated road. Due to aircraft, we no longer have 'cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos' but you weren't quite going that high up. Also an elevated road can be quite bothersome. The Central Artery in Boston was elevated, and had nightmarish effects that have cost a lot of money to ameliorate. Of course, they replaced it with a tunnel that brings with it the nightmare that it'll collapse on you....
Anyway, it's actually a real pain in the ass to build a road when you have to get the property owners in the path to voluntarily sell to you. Some will sell for a reasonable price, some will try to get an unreasonably high price, and some will absolutely refuse to sell. If we did it that way, nothing would ever get built, given the hundreds or thousands of different owners along the path for the road. Going around might work, but it would make the roads a mess and insanely inefficient. Imagine driving from New York City to Philadelphia via Missouri.
Governments derive their powers from their people, with the idea being that if people could live harmoniously together without government we would, but in practice we don't, so we put together governments to help with this. We invest a takings power with the government because it is recognized that the government works better for the populace as a whole when it can work for them without each individual having significant veto power over it. (This is also why votes are usually taken by majorities without unanimity being required.) We also recognize that we don't want the government running roughshod over individuals, so we put in some protections for them too.
If I own a piece of land, and I want to sell it, that is where it can be determined that it has a specific monetary value.
Okay. Alice is a homeowner and Bob is an arsonist. Bob burns down Alice's house. Since Alice didn't want to sell, her house has no known value. Does this mean that Bob doesn't have to pay anything to Alice? Or alternatively, can we compute the value, by looking at the property in question, and comparing it with other, similar property, for which we have a history of value as determined by the market?
Honestly, how someone can be against the idea of appraisal is just astounding to me.
How do you compensate for [blah, blah, blah].
Generally a check or a wire transfer.
It is what we call blackmail, where one party is forced to do something it does not believe is legal, ethical or otherwise proper, by another party that wields a coercive force.
So you're saying that federal highway funding is a coercive force. In that case, what damage did the federal government do to the states prior to the creation of the interstate highway system? Was it a lot of damage, them not spending all that money?
Or are you an ass, who thinks that the states have gotten addicted to federal money and somehow have a right to it because they cannot properly balance the amount of government spending in their state with the amount of revenue they, themselves, can raise? If a state wants to ignore federal mandates tied to federal spending, all they need to do is either 1) go without that spending, or 2) get the money for that spending themselves. No one is stopping them. Well, other than enough of the voters to win elections, who
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
See, you probably didn't even have to tell us you were a lawyer; your ability to consider an absolutely absurd and contradictory argument perfectly reasonable might have done it. "Unless that is a pillow despite being a knife" "Unless that color is blue, despite being red." "Unless you actually threatened me, despite having never threatened anyone in your life."
I lived under the elevated in Chicago for years. Worked fine for me and them. I lived over the subway in Manhattan at 168th street and Broadway. Not only worked, it was very convenient. I've also lived underneath a highway bridge on route 209 in Milford, Pennsylvania. Used to love the sound of the trucks. Your arguments are empty.
No, "we" don't. The constitution did (a group of people who never consulted either you, or me) and they limited it by requiring reasonable compensation. Again, your arguments are empty.
Ah. Here we go. Poor fellow loses argument, resorts to name calling. How tactically advanced. Work for you in court, does it?
I'm truly sorry, I had no intent to be cryptic or threatening. I just thought you would understand the remark. What I was saying is that your job - lawyer - is one of using bad law against the citizens. We've seen this before, Nuremberg comes to mind. You jumped on here, all full of vim and vigor, and attempted to defend positions that support the out of control government; posting supportively about areas in which the government is radically abusing the citizens. Eventually, as evidenced by another poster's remark about a "nice dirty civil war", enough citizens will tire of this to rise up against this abuse. I doubt it'll be as radical as the advice of Shakespeare's character Dick the Butcher in Henry VI ("First, let's kill all the lawyers.") It'll probably simply be show trials, just like those in Nuremberg, and probably with the same results. It wasn't a threat, it was just an observation brought from, and supported by, history. Abuse the people, eventually, they'll get tired of it, and things generally go downhill for the abusers after that. And really, try not to be so defensive. It isn't my fault you chose to support the government's abuses; and it isn't my fault that you signed your posts with the claim that you are a lawyer. These are your claims, your positions, and frankly, if there is anger here, your best solution is to go do something more positive and quit supporting the abusers.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.