Lumping and splitting; us and them: How not to be evil with categories

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Lumping, splitting; us and them: How not to be evil with categories

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Quick activity: Yell out: Examples of games

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Classic category theory (how we think we think) A deﬁnition-based model Bird = feathers, a beak and the ability to ﬂy Categories are based on shared properties All birds share these properties Containers with boundaries - things are in or out It’s either a bird or it isn’t

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Modern category theory (how we actually think) Categories are embodied There is no ‘proper’ way to categorise Many things exist in a continuum Including age and gender

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Boundaries are fuzzy, overlap & change over time Members may not have anything in common Easy to describe, hard to deﬁne ‘Game’ is easier to represent with examples Prototypes: Some things belong better than others Modern category theory (how we actually think)

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Modern category theory Basic level: Where we think Animal Dog Dalma*an Furniture Table Bedside table

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Consequences

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Other categories of evil • Targeted advertising (based on putting you in a category) • aka why I don’t tell Facebook I’m single • Insurance premiums based on age/postcode, not behaviour • First-degree price discrimination • Uber has been testing ‘route-based pricing’ • Pre-employment psychometric tests • US recidivism models

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How not to be evil Acknowledge that many categories are actually continuums Create services, policies etc based on actual behaviours, not group behaviours Always ask why you’re collecting a category and what it will be used for