China's Social Credit System

[denstorebog]

Wow, there are some people in this thread with a desperate need to rationalize something absolutely horrible and indefensible.

Just-world hypothesis in action.

[SpaceChampion]

No, deep learning algorithms aren't designed by any person.  They are "model-free".  The neural network finds patterns itself, without humans training it and without awareness of what the data means.  Humans just provide some meta-data meaning to the dataset.

All economics claims to quantify human behaviour.  What I'm talking about is measurable harm in the sense of resiliency of the network.  I didn't say punishing alcoholics -- taxes on alcohol aren't designed to do that either.  What I'm talking about is a network wide view of the whole thing.  The whole economy is a network, and we've known for 80 years how to control networks.  Blockchain-type ledgers would allow it only in the last 10 years, and politically we aren't there yet.

 

[mankytoes]

21 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

No, deep learning algorithms aren't designed by any person.  They are "model-free".  The neural network finds patterns itself, without humans training it and without awareness of what the data means.  Humans just provide some meta-data meaning to the dataset.

All economics claims to quantify human behaviour.  What I'm talking about is measurable harm in the sense of resiliency of the network.  I didn't say punishing alcoholics -- taxes on alcohol aren't designed to do that either.  What I'm talking about is a network wide view of the whole thing.  The whole economy is a network, and we've known for 80 years how to control networks.  Blockchain-type ledgers would allow it only in the last 10 years, and politically we aren't there yet.

 

Someone still has to create and set up the "deep learning algorithm", they aren't going to spontaneously come into existance. And someone else has to put what it says into action.

I know, which is why economics is limited in its' usefulness. We don't usually have economists running countries.

The whole economy may be a network, but society is so much more than just an economy. Treating every decision as purely an economic one would (and does) have terrible consequences.