Sexist Apple Credit Cards

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

But at the same time I don't think men have 10x higher insurance premiums

But men do have higher insurance premiums. Men are more likely to get injured in a workplace accident. That’s not sexist, that’s reality. 

[Brooksie359]

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

Yep they should target the factors instead like they already take into account how much you drive. But at the same time I don't think men have 10x higher insurance premiums 

I fail to see how it matters if it is 10x or not. It's still sexist and still matters. Just being a guy in their early 20s automatically makes their car insurance significantly more expensive just because they view it as a higher risk.

 

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

But men do have higher insurance premiums. Men are more likely to get injured in a workplace accident. That’s not sexist, that’s reality. 

I dont think they are more likely just from being men it probably because they tend to be doing jobs where the risk of injury is higher so you can take that into account rather than gender

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I fail to see how it matters if it is 10x or not. It's still sexist and still matters. Just being a guy in their early 20s automatically makes their car insurance significantly more expensive just because they view it as a higher risk.

 

Its still wrong either way but if its like a 2% difference people probably won't complain about it as much but alas it's a 1000% difference. If insurance premiums rose 1000% for men you can be sure there would be people up in arms about that

[Commodus]

2 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I love to see people discussing "the algorithm". "The algorithm isn't sexist", "the algorithm inherits the biases"....

"The algorithm" is a tool. Despite its name, "AI" is just a tool. Saying the algorithm did this or did that is like saying "I didn't put that nail there, the hammer did!".

 

Essentially, how a company and the people working for it made decisions A,B,C doesn't matter. Ultimately, those people, and the company by extension, made the decision. The tools they used are their problem.

 

And when it comes to discrimination, it doesn't matter if women earn less or more or whatever, or even whether credit scores are different ex-post for women, what matters is if being a woman (or a male for that matter) in itself was used as a decision variable. You can have discrimination against women and higher credit limits for women. Take a simple linear rule: 

 

CreditLimit = b₁ Wage + b₂ Assets +b₃ CreditHistory + b₄Sex

 

As long as b₄ != 0, you have discrimination. Women may have lower scores because of lower wage, assets, history and discrimination. Or they could have higher limits due to higher wage, assets, or credit history, but not "high enough" due to discrimination. Women could benefit from discrimination if b₄>0, but still is discrimination.

The real question is whether sex, or a proxy that ultimately represents sex after controlling for all other variables, is a variable in making this tool. Because, if it is...

To be clear, though, the New York Department of Financial Services said that intent on Goldman Sachs' part doesn't necessarily matter -- it's the outcome that does.  If the end result is that a woman gets a tiny credit limit for no good reason, officials will still tell Goldman Sachs to fix things.

 

It's also important to keep in mind that discrimination in algorithms isn't always blatant.  For example, a healthcare algorithm was recently giving black people less money for treatment regardless of the severity of their conditions.  Why?  The algorithm emphasized medical costs, not the actual need, and that hurt historically lower-income black communities.  It wasn't intentional, but it had the same effect.  It's possible that Goldman has a similar problem.

[DrMacintosh]

18 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

I dont think they are more likely just from being men it probably because they tend to be doing jobs where the risk of injury is higher so you can take that into account rather than gender

That’s literally 0 distinction.

[ManyCoresGuy]

20 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Or you know, maybe it has to do with different spending habits/income. But hey, 2019, everything is sexist/racist/whatever-ist.

THIS!

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Unless the Banks algorithm is released and there is a specific male or female flag/variable/etc. which directly tanks a women’s credit score, it’s going to be way easier for the Bank to prove it’s not sexism than the accusing party is going to be able to prove that it is sexism. 

Which is what I already, until we have the algorithm  this debate will not be settled.  However until then going on the balance of claimed conditions and outcomes it looks like their is a problem, if the algorithm is not working and treating sex differently then what else is it getting wrong?

 

 

[The1Dickens]

3 hours ago, Phill104 said:

I also find it quite funny that the very rich also have credit cards.

Why is this a surprising thing for so many people? Rich people don't just have all their wealth sitting in their living rooms. Or in a personal vault a la Scrooge McDuck. Plus, why would anyone want to throw around full cash amounts when they can pay a small portion, and have the rest of that amount go into an investment to make them more money?

 

Also, while they may report the same bank accounts, they also have to report their income. Someone making 5,000/month sitting on 100K in an account is a different risk than someone making 25,000/month sitting on 100K in an account. They also consider credit history, and if your credit history only shows transactions under a specific amount, there is going to be multiple reasons to only extend credit to within a small margin of that limit, including security (after all, it would be suspicious if your spending habit jumped from 2,000/month to 300,000/month).

 

Also, whether you like it or not, your spending habits can profile you to startling accuracy, including gender, race, religion, age, marital status, and many other things. And you are not unique in that regards, not in so much as a lender or creditor cares to run the risk. After all, credit is all about risk.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, The1Dickens said:

Why is this a surprising thing for so many people? Rich people don't just have all their wealth sitting in their living rooms. Or in a personal vault a la Scrooge McDuck. Plus, why would anyone want to throw around full cash amounts when they can pay a small portion, and have the rest of that amount go into an investment to make them more money?

 

Also, while they may report the same bank accounts, they also have to report their income. Someone making 5,000/month sitting on 100K in an account is a different risk than someone making 25,000/month sitting on 100K in an account. They also consider credit history, and if your credit history only shows transactions under a specific amount, there is going to be multiple reasons to only extend credit to within a small margin of that limit, including security (after all, it would be suspicious if your spending habit jumped from 2,000/month to 300,000/month).

 

Also, whether you like it or not, your spending habits can profile you to startling accuracy, including gender, race, religion, age, marital status, and many other things. And you are not unique in that regards, not in so much as a lender or creditor cares to run the risk. After all, credit is all about risk.

I am not suggesting they should not want cards, just cards like this particular one. Credit accounts are a very different prospect to other types of accounts. No cash need be involved, not money under the mattress. The point here is, why pay interest and fees when you can use other banking methods as a multi millionaire including setting up your own credit card firm and making it tax deductible.

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

it’s going to be way easier for the Bank to prove it’s not sexism than the accusing party is going to be able to prove that it is sexism. 

Nobody is saying GS intentionally programmed the algorithm to disfavor women - but the algorithm is sexist, by definition, due to it discriminating heavily against women. And GS is responsible for either negligence, incompetence or both for allowing this. I don't need to prove it's intentional to say that it's sexist...

[yolosnail]

Forget the whole sexism thing for a minute

 

Why do people even care about their credit limit? Surely nobody should carry any debt on their credit card, if you're buying something that you don't have the money to buy outright, you shouldn't be buying it.

If you NEED to buy it, wouldn't it make more sense to look into other lines of credit that have considerably lower interest rates?

[ARikozuM]

8 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

Forget the whole sexism thing for a minute

 

Why do people even care about their credit limit? Surely nobody should carry any debt on their credit card, if you're buying something that you don't have the money to buy outright, you shouldn't be buying it.

If you NEED to buy it, wouldn't it make more sense to look into other lines of credit that have considerably lower interest rates?

Some of us can outright buy a $10K product, but might want to take 6 12 months 0% APR as a buffer or cashback just because it brings something back without costing anything. 

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

Forget the whole sexism thing for a minute

 

Why do people even care about their credit limit? Surely nobody should carry any debt on their credit card, if you're buying something that you don't have the money to buy outright, you shouldn't be buying it.

If you NEED to buy it, wouldn't it make more sense to look into other lines of credit that have considerably lower interest rates?

I don't have  CC.  haven't for a long time.  But some people are just in that horrid position where they earn enough to be able to make repayments on a CC but not enough to save for anything substantial.  Everyone else is either just fooled by the corporate machine where nothing is free and those points/bonus/etc have to be paid from somewhere, or, they are exceedingly wealthy and write the interest rates and fees off against tax and enjoy having an almost negative bank balance when being questioned by the tax office. 

[suicidalfranco]

and another nothing burger.

 

I'm really disappointed with the forum today :(

 

expected two threads that could brighten up my day by trashing apple and ms and all i got where two trash articles that have nothing to do with Windows getting hacked or Apple Card doing something wrong

 

Can we leave the sensationalist, clickbait titles to Linus and his videos?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I don't have  CC.  haven't for a long time.  But some people are just in that horrid position where they earn enough to be able to make repayments on a CC but not enough to save for anything substantial.  Everyone else is either just fooled by the corporate machine where nothing is free and those points/bonus/etc have to be paid from somewhere, or, they are exceedingly wealthy and write the interest rates and fees off against tax and enjoy having an almost negative bank balance when being questioned by the tax office. 

Some of us have a CC for the additional protection it gives us, particularly here in Europe. If we buy something, the CC company are jointly responsible whether you have paid it off in full of not. For instance, I would never purchase a holiday of flight on my debit card, only on the CC. If I then pay it off in full I am still able to get a full refund should the airline or holiday company go under. Here, anything over £100 is covered under the act. So if all goes wrong with the supp,iTR, you can get recompense from the CC company. I am sure that in the land of plenty the same exists, not so certain about the US.

[yolosnail]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Some of us can outright buy a $10K product, but might want to take 6 12 months 0% APR as a buffer or cashback just because it brings something back without costing anything. 

I suppose that is true, my grandfather has a £50,000 credit limit on one of his cards (I think one of his other ones is even higher), and he bought a car with it so he could get the cashback, and then as soon as we got home he paid it off in full. 

 

56 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I don't have  CC.  haven't for a long time.  But some people are just in that horrid position where they earn enough to be able to make repayments on a CC but not enough to save for anything substantial.  Everyone else is either just fooled by the corporate machine where nothing is free and those points/bonus/etc have to be paid from somewhere, or, they are exceedingly wealthy and write the interest rates and fees off against tax and enjoy having an almost negative bank balance when being questioned by the tax office. 

I don't have a credit card, and I have no intention of getting one. I personally hate being in debt (there are exceptions, like 0% rates)

If I spent enough to make any of the bonuses worth while I might consider getting one, but I'm the cheapest of cheapskates and most of the things I own were bought cash on ebay or Gumtree!

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

I suppose that is true, my grandfather has a £50,000 credit limit on one of his cards (I think one of his other ones is even higher), and he bought a car with it so he could get the cashback, and then as soon as we got home he paid it off in full. 

I just bought my daughter a used car using a CC simply for the protection purchasing on a CC offers, If you are the kind of person that doesn’t get tempted to use the credit it is well worth having one.

[The1Dickens]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Nobody is saying GS intentionally programmed the algorithm to disfavor women - but the algorithm is sexist, by definition, due to it discriminating heavily against women. And GS is responsible for either negligence, incompetence or both for allowing this. I don't need to prove it's intentional to say that it's sexist...

Okay, so how do you propose that process is validated? How can you prove, with repeatable data, that the only contributing factor to the credit limit is the applicant's gender? There are a lot of theories and assumptions going back and forth, and the likelihood that the algorithm will be released publicly is essentially nil, for fear of people trying to game the system after.

 

2 hours ago, Phill104 said:

I am not suggesting they should not want cards, just cards like this particular one. Credit accounts are a very different prospect to other types of accounts. No cash need be involved, not money under the mattress. The point here is, why pay interest and fees when you can use other banking methods as a multi millionaire including setting up your own credit card firm and making it tax deductible.

I meant that in jest, really. You're not the first person I've heard recently make that statement, and I don't know the full thought behind it, it just sounds silly at face value.

[cj09beira]

On 11/10/2019 at 9:58 PM, Phill104 said:

In your opinion the studies are bs. I actually see it at work, and the difference is more than 5%. In the east I am sure you can appreciate the gap is a whole different thing. 
 

Either way, even 5% is too much. If two people are doing the same job to an equal standard they should receive equal renumeration. 
 

However all this is going off topic. We have algorithms here that are visibly biased whether is be based on sex or race. That needs to be investigated and where appropriate redressed.

no 5% is not much, it just takes some ask for promotion/ salary increases a bit more often to create such a disparity, an women do tend to ask for them less often than men do,

Spoiler

are we going to now prevent people from getting more for their work if they can bargain their way there, the only way to get everyone at the same exact pay is to bring everyone down, lets just focus on getting everyone to have the same opportunities (within reason)

 

[TopHatProductions115]

Don't Sexism, Racism, ect., have to do with both action and intent? As in, the action has to be taken specifically against one or more parties (not by accident or due to a unintentionally bad dataset), with the intent of negatively impacting said party (ei., purposeful use of a biased dataset, to target women)? The algorithm itself can't be racist or sexist, for it has not intention. Said qualities must be applied to its creators. But then you'd have to prove that the accused party intended for the algorithm to setback a specific party. That it wasn't a mistake/poor design. Are we mincing words here?

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

Don't Sexism, Racism, ect., have to do with both action and intent? As in, the action has to be taken specifically against one or more parties (not by accident or due to a unintentionally bad dataset), with the intent of negatively impacting said party? The algorithm itself can't be racist or sexist, for it has not intention. Said qualities must be applied to its creators. But then you'd have to prove that the accused intended for the algorithm to setback a specific party. That it wasn't a mistake/poor design. Are we mincing words here?

Not really. You can be sexist without having an intentional bias. 

 

Also, per NY law:

[Drak3]

4 minutes ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

Don't Sexism, Racism, ect., have to do with both action and intent?

Only if you're a reasonable person.

[The1Dickens]

7 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Not really. You can be sexist without having an intentional bias. 

 

Also, per NY law:

Similar in CA law, too, apparently, per Scott, Wagner, and Associates article on AI in the workplace:

"So even if a company does not intend to discriminate, its over-reliance on algorithms and AI to recruit new candidates may effectively constitute illegal discrimination by screening out certain individuals based on their protected traits – like age, religion, national origin, gender, disability, religion, or race."

Edited November 12, 2019 by The1Dickens
Added link to article

[ARikozuM]

Just now, The1Dickens said:

Similar in CA law, too, apparently, per Scott, Wagner, and Associates article on AI in the workplace:

"So even if a company does not intend to discriminate, its over-reliance on algorithms and AI to recruit new candidates may effectively constitute illegal discrimination by screening out certain individuals based on their protected traits – like age, religion, national origin, gender, disability, religion, or race."

Hiring should always be done fairly and by humans, not AI. It reeks of potential underhiring of those who may have better skills but not able to capitalize them on paper.