If I had a time machine and could go to the future and see who would pay back their loans and who wouldn't, that would be ideal. But we don't have that, we can only make predictions by looking at data that happened to correlate with that in the past.
No it's not socially acceptable to use certain data points to make decisions, but this has good justification behind it. People will irrationally weigh stuff like race or gender to make decisions even when it doesn't matter. But this is being done by a completely unbiased computer program. And they wouldn't use it if it made their predictions worse. So that reasoning of the predictor being irrational doesn't apply in this case.
And I'm sure the program was written by a completely unbiased computer, too!
if job == 'Lawyer':
score + 100
if poor_people_friends > 150:
score - 100Everyone?
LOL
Perhaps I'm naive, but I hold to the... philosophy, I guess I'll call it for the moment, that most people want a strong community. And that that is aided by people being in touch with each other, including and especially people of different social and economic strata.
Take this proposed ranking to its extreme: You will have people who are ostracized and who perhaps cannot become "un-ostracized" because connecting with them forms not only perhaps a personal risk but also a commercial risk for other parties.
Some societies have versions of this, for example, the caste system.
How "mobile" are people going to be, when every "up-link" to someone of higher standing is cause for a computer somewhere to drag down the status of the up-linked.
We also have problems of this sort in the U.S. with our insurance industry -- I'm thinking at the moment particularly of health insurance. Insurance is supposed to be a pooling of risk and of resources with which to deal with that risk. If you don't take out as much as you put in, count your blessings! You have above average health.
If you need help, it is there for you. "I am my brother's keeper."
In times past, we knew less about diseases. You knew less about what might "get you" and where it was coming from.
These days, we know (somewhat -- less than some arrogant doctors would like you to think) more about diseases. We think we can control some factors -- diet and exercise being prime examples.
We still have to contend with injuries, including injuries that we do not cause, such as some car accidents.
And... your control of "controllable/willpower" factors may be less than some people would think. Live in a "food desert", and fresh produce may be difficult to acquire. Live in certain places in my metropolitan area, and an evening walk for exercise presents its own not inconsiderable risks.
Nonetheless, many people these days seem included to think of insurance as akin to a savings plane. You should get out what you pay in. If not, you're being ripped off!
That's not how it works. That's not how it's intended to work.
Back to social media and risk evaluation. Do I, should I have to evaluate every potential connection for the economic risk it may bring me?
We are close to having ubiquitous surveillance cameras (including ultra-high resolution airframe mounted cameras that can track a vehicle or even a pedestrian across an entire city). Do I have to worry that every chance encounter and conversation on the street may effect not just my political and security rating but also my economic rating? Talk to that bum asking for change, and your credit score goes down 50 points. Ok, you can talk to him/her for a maximum of 20 seconds; any longer, and we will think you have an "un-natural" "affinity" for such a lifestyle.
Bankers can't "red line" in making mortgage loans. Schools (including private ones) can't deny admission upon the basis of race -- nor, in some states, upon sexual preference.
We constantly place limitations upon the scope and focus of commercial evaluations. Social media is a landscape that will have to be dealt with, in this regard.
Yes you are right there is an incentive problem created by this. Once you start measuring something, people start trying to game the measurements. That said, no one is forcing you to make such decisions, or even go to a business that uses such evaluations.
>Bankers can't "red line" in making mortgage loans. Schools (including private ones) can't deny admission upon the basis of race -- nor, in some states, upon sexual preference.
>We constantly place limitations upon the scope and focus of commercial evaluations. Social media is a landscape that will have to be dealt with, in this regard.
Yes but the intention of those laws are to stop irrational bigotry. Like someone who hates some group and refusing to do business with them because they want to punish them or whatever. We are talking about an unbiased computer algorithm that just weighs the data and uses it to make more accurate predictions. That's the goal, to make accurate predictions. The data used doesn't matter.