Thanks for the links. According to the Equal Pay Act of 1963, there are plenty of legal ways to pay women less than men, as long as it isn't based directly on sex.
"(d) (1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.
Beyond that, they can look at things like qualifications, time at the company, projects worked on, and annual reviews. It's imperfect, but also far better than doing nothing.
Brace yourself for people claiming that the review process is sexist.
Salary discrimination by gender is against the law, and the judge isn't going to give a crap about your rationalizations.
What if a company determines salary by a completely objective method, independent of gender, that results in a systematic difference between men and women ?
If men are more assertive about asking for raises, then you either need to learn to say "no" or you need to give equal raises to similarly qualified women, whether they ask or not.
Why make an exception for women ? Why don't the non-assertive men get a raise too ?
But if your policy of "give anyone a raise if and only if they ask for one" results in systematically different pay for equally qualified men and women, you are breaking the law.
What if you give a raise to anybody who performs exceptionally well, and that happens to result in more men getting a raise ?
If you are systematically paying women with the job relevant skills in the same roles different amounts then it's illegal.
Even if the average woman makes less than the average man, that doesn't mean there's a systematic gender bias. It could simply be that the man performed better, asked for a raise, and got one. Does the law say that if one person gets a raise, that everybody else with the same job description should get an identical raise ?
google's not doing it for the money. They're doing it for a shitload of money.
Not really, if the men are making more money for the same job, a simple solution would be to lower their salaries to match their female counterparts. That would actually save money for Google.
What if you negotiate a more challenging job ? For example, one person could get a job title that says "software engineer 150k", while another gets a title that says "software engineer 140k".
No. It doesn't matter what you "say". It only matters what you "do". If you systematically pay men and women differently on any basis other than their ability to do their job, they you are breaking the law.
I'm not familiar with US law, but does it really say that it's illegal to negotiate about salaries ? Can you provide a link to that law ?
In other words, there is no practical way to do it since you need to individually perform a detailed historical analysis of each person's output, including adjusting for where others have helped or hindered
It's easy to get the numbers for the salaries, but how are you going to accurately get the numbers for job type, productivity, experience and skill level ?
The most accurate perceived colors would probably actually be achieved by RGB subpixels that perfectly match the excitation frequencies of the cones in our eyes
No, because our cones are blue, yellow-red and yellow-green, with considerable overlap, especially between the two latter ones. To produce a green experience, you need to stimulate the yellow-green cone, but not the yellow-red, and to do that, you need a green emitting pixel. If you try stimulating the yellow-green cone with its exact center frequency, you'll also stimulate the yellow-red cone, and produce a yellow-green experience.
Maybe they didn't want to deal with tech export restrictions to China. Maybe there is no computer, and it's just a secretly trained human Go player in the network closet. Who knows.
Not be just being faster, they wouldn't. Take a bad algorithm, and make it a million times faster, and it's still bad. A factor of a million in Go only gets you a few extra levels of depth, which is useless if you're still using the same bad evaluation of the board.
The version playing Ke Jie is so much more efficient that it uses one tenth the quantity of computation that Alphago Lee used, and runs on a single machine on Google’s cloud, powered by one tensor processing unit (TPU). AlphaGo Lee would probe 50 moves deep and study 100,000 moves per second.
Going along with GP's confusion between 'computers' and 'software',
The confusion doesn't matter, because both hardware and software can be improved by neural nets. It's nothing but a complicated logic game, and "Computers can do ANY logic game better than any human".
I mean we don't have any idea how the human brain really works
We don't have to. We know enough that we can create a self learning machine that beats a human at a highly intuitive game. From here, it's just a matter of scaling and improvement, and we can even use a computer to help with the design.
Our own brains have evolved from simple primate brains in less than a million generations, without anybody around to understand how they work.
Slashdot Mirror
If your hiring process results in a systematic difference in pay between equally qualified men and women, then you are breaking the law.
If they used a 'completely objective method, independent of gender', and they find a systematic difference, then they must not be equally qualified.
Thanks for the links. According to the Equal Pay Act of 1963, there are plenty of legal ways to pay women less than men, as long as it isn't based directly on sex.
"(d) (1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.
It doesn't say anything about negotiations.
Beyond that, they can look at things like qualifications, time at the company, projects worked on, and annual reviews. It's imperfect, but also far better than doing nothing.
Brace yourself for people claiming that the review process is sexist.
because a systematic bias will show anyway if there is one,
If you don't compensate for job performance, the bias is meaningless. You need to learn a lot more about statistics.
Salary discrimination by gender is against the law, and the judge isn't going to give a crap about your rationalizations.
What if a company determines salary by a completely objective method, independent of gender, that results in a systematic difference between men and women ?
If men are more assertive about asking for raises, then you either need to learn to say "no" or you need to give equal raises to similarly qualified women, whether they ask or not.
Why make an exception for women ? Why don't the non-assertive men get a raise too ?
But if your policy of "give anyone a raise if and only if they ask for one" results in systematically different pay for equally qualified men and women, you are breaking the law.
What if you give a raise to anybody who performs exceptionally well, and that happens to result in more men getting a raise ?
And yet you're arguing about it.
No, I'm not. I'm asking a question.
If you are systematically paying women with the job relevant skills in the same roles different amounts then it's illegal.
Even if the average woman makes less than the average man, that doesn't mean there's a systematic gender bias. It could simply be that the man performed better, asked for a raise, and got one. Does the law say that if one person gets a raise, that everybody else with the same job description should get an identical raise ?
google's not doing it for the money. They're doing it for a shitload of money.
Not really, if the men are making more money for the same job, a simple solution would be to lower their salaries to match their female counterparts. That would actually save money for Google.
What if you negotiate a more challenging job ? For example, one person could get a job title that says "software engineer 150k", while another gets a title that says "software engineer 140k".
You're missing the point. Of course, Google's rationale is bogus. That doesn't make them retarded.
Can you prove his assumption, that a man gets paid more for the same job, isn't true?
Hey moron, the poster is making the assumption, so he or she needs to provide the proof, moron.
No. It doesn't matter what you "say". It only matters what you "do". If you systematically pay men and women differently on any basis other than their ability to do their job, they you are breaking the law.
I'm not familiar with US law, but does it really say that it's illegal to negotiate about salaries ? Can you provide a link to that law ?
I'm no SJW but it seems to me that the difference between what men and women are paid to do identical work
You're assuming that they do identical work, with identical performance. Before you go any further, you'll need to provide proof that this is true.
I'm pretty sure Google is not retarded, so you must be missing something here.
In other words, there is no practical way to do it since you need to individually perform a detailed historical analysis of each person's output, including adjusting for where others have helped or hindered
Which makes the whole debate pointless.
It's easy to get the numbers for the salaries, but how are you going to accurately get the numbers for job type, productivity, experience and skill level ?
The most accurate perceived colors would probably actually be achieved by RGB subpixels that perfectly match the excitation frequencies of the cones in our eyes
No, because our cones are blue, yellow-red and yellow-green, with considerable overlap, especially between the two latter ones. To produce a green experience, you need to stimulate the yellow-green cone, but not the yellow-red, and to do that, you need a green emitting pixel. If you try stimulating the yellow-green cone with its exact center frequency, you'll also stimulate the yellow-red cone, and produce a yellow-green experience.
Maybe they didn't want to deal with tech export restrictions to China. Maybe there is no computer, and it's just a secretly trained human Go player in the network closet. Who knows.
Not be just being faster, they wouldn't. Take a bad algorithm, and make it a million times faster, and it's still bad. A factor of a million in Go only gets you a few extra levels of depth, which is useless if you're still using the same bad evaluation of the board.
http://www.usgo.org/news/2017/...
The version playing Ke Jie is so much more efficient that it uses one tenth the quantity of computation that Alphago Lee used, and runs on a single machine on Google’s cloud, powered by one tensor processing unit (TPU). AlphaGo Lee would probe 50 moves deep and study 100,000 moves per second.
Going along with GP's confusion between 'computers' and 'software',
The confusion doesn't matter, because both hardware and software can be improved by neural nets. It's nothing but a complicated logic game, and "Computers can do ANY logic game better than any human".
your 'learning machines' are not going to 'evolve' into fully conscious minds,
-- anonymous coward on Slashdot
heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning.
-- Lord Kelvin, not an anonymous coward.
This new version of AlphaGo runs on a single machine, using Google's own Tensor Processing Units.
What game should they be good at next? Who cares? Computers can do ANY logic game better than any human.
Realistic first person shooter games, driving cars, and designing better computers.
I mean we don't have any idea how the human brain really works
We don't have to. We know enough that we can create a self learning machine that beats a human at a highly intuitive game. From here, it's just a matter of scaling and improvement, and we can even use a computer to help with the design.
Our own brains have evolved from simple primate brains in less than a million generations, without anybody around to understand how they work.