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Daily Archives: May 23, 2019

Investigating the Impact of Gender on Rank in Resume Search Engines

Investigating the Impact of Gender on Rank in Resume Search Engines. CHI ’18 Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Paper No. 651.
“In this work we investigate gender-based inequalities in the context of resume search engines, which are tools that allow recruiters to proactively search for candidates based on keywords and filters. If these ranking algorithms take demographic features into account (directly or indirectly), they may produce rankings that disadvantage some candidates. We collect search results from Indeed, Monster, and Career Builder based on 35job titles in 20 U. S. cities, resulting in data on 855K job candidates. Using statistical tests, we examine whether these search engines produce rankings that exhibit two types of indirect discrimination:individual and group unfairness. Furthermore, we use controlled experiments to show that these websites do not use inferred gender of candidates as explicit features in their ranking algorithms.”

ALA releases new Libraries’ Guide to the 2020 Census

“Today the American Library Association released the Libraries’ Guide to the 2020 Census, a new resource to prepare libraries for the decennial count of every person living in the United States. “Next year, when people begin to receive mail asking them to complete the census, we know that many of them will have questions about… Continue Reading

Online identification is getting more and more intrusive

The Economist [paywall] – Phones can now tell who is carrying them from their users’ gaits “…LexisNexis Risk Solutions, an American analytics firm, has catalogued more than 4 billion phones, tablets and other computers in this way for banks and other clients. Roughly 7% of them have been used for shenanigans of some sort. But… Continue Reading

Samsung deepfake AI could fabricate a video clip of you from a single photo

c/net: “Imagine someone creating a deepfake video of you simply by stealing your Facebook profile pic. Luckily, the bad guys don’t have their hands on that tech yet.  But Samsung has figured out how to make it happen.  Software for creating deepfakes — fabricated clips that make people appear to do or say things they never… Continue Reading

Commentary – Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill

Cato Institute: “Washington’s latest symbolic battle is looming. America’s money celebrates its early political leaders, white males all. There’s now a campaign to provide for greater currency diversity. The group Women on 20s held a poll on what woman should be added: the victor was famed antislavery activist Harriet Tubman, who narrowly beat out First… Continue Reading

PLOS Journals Now OPEN for Published Peer Review

“Starting today, ALL PLOS journals will offer authors the option to publish their peer review history alongside their accepted manuscript! We’ve been excited to make this announcement, and make major strides towards a more open publication process, since last fall when we signed ASAPbio’s open letter committing to transparent peer review options. What will it… Continue Reading

Democracy in Retreat Freedom in the World 2019

“In 2018, Freedom in the World recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. The overall losses are still shallow compared with the gains of the late… Continue Reading

Burgeoning Workloads for Immigration Judges Inbox x

“The hiring pace for new judges continues to be insufficient to keep up with the Immigration Court’s workload. As a result, the court’s backlog continues to climb – up 65 percent since President Trump assumed office. A total of only 424 judges face a backlog of 892,517 cases on the courts’ active dockets as of… Continue Reading