Ellen Ullman on the importance of making algorithms accessible to the public

https://slackhq.com/programmer-and-author-ellen-ullman-on-why-hackers-need-the-humanities-94f09d4584c7

by fagnerbrack • 9 years ago

50 42 9 years ago

dijit• 9 years ago

She strikes me as a person who has a lot of interesting things to say, I haven't read her books so I thank the author for the exposure.

However, if I had one criticism it would be that the interview and resulting article focus quite a bit on her being a victim of prejudice rather than focusing on the great work she has done. But maybe that's me.

mcphage2• 9 years ago

I recently finished her “Close to the Machine”, and I loved it.

afarrell• 9 years ago

The beauty of language is that we can be imprecise and still be understood.

And the terrifying thing about language is that we can still strive to be precise and yet (perhaps even unknowingly) be wildly misunderstood...perhaps malevolently. I've heard someone describe programming as telling a very precise story to a very stupid human. However, I think it would be better to describe a compiler as a more humble listener. One who is willing to say "I'm sorry, you just told me to multiply a string, and I think I'm misunderstanding you." Thinking of compiler errors as an expression of humility can explain the comfort one finds in a stronger type system.

It is the same comfort one finds by not speaking publicly on twitter but speaking to a person who has the charity to say "huh? I think you just said this thing that sounds wildly offensive, and I think I'm misunderstanding you."

auggierose• 9 years ago

I don't think ascribing humility to a piece of code makes any kind of sense.

santaragolabs• 9 years ago

Tangibly related due to it being Ellen Ullman.

Oh wow. So I read "The Bug" of hers just after it came out (14 years ago) and it's such a poignant read about someone being slowly driven mad because he can't find a very peculiar bug which unpredictably haunts the sales people demo'ing their product. It's a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone here. The technical accuracy is hilarious too but you don't need to be a programmer whatsoever to understand the novel. I won't spoil the reveal of the actual bug or the ending but it's very much worth it.

After reading it I loaned my hardcover copy out to a guy named Boris when I told him how much I liked it. Boris; I don't know where you are and what you're up to nowadays; but if you somehow end up reading this; I kinda want it back. Ping me.

jacquesm2• 9 years ago

http://blog.woodpie.com/the-man-who-shared-his-books-and-mul...

YouAreGreat• 9 years ago

Can someone point me to what the argument here is for why "hackers need the humanities"? I can't seem to find it at the link.

duggan• 9 years ago

Perhaps it was left out in editing, or is made in Ullman's recently published book Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology.

nhebb2• 9 years ago

In the article, she never directly states that hackers need to study the humanities. What she was basically saying - in the part about Vacca - is that there needs to be human oversight to algorithms that affect public policies (school districting, police paroles, ...). So the implication, in that example, is that programmers should work with people in the social sciences to deliver solutions that may not be algorithmically optimal, but better meet the needs of the community.

torpcoms3• 9 years ago

may not be algorithmically optimal, but better meet the needs of the community

Yeah, that sounds a bit like a blank check for someone to corrupt the generated output under the guise of a nebulous "It's better for our community" while scaremongering about the big bad algorithm.

junkscience20172• 9 years ago

This assumes that humans will be compassionate, be pitiable, and always bend the rules to benefit those in need, whereas algorithms are harsh and cruel.

In reality the algorithms are doing exactly what the humans would do. School districting for example...this has to be the most objective determination in public policy. In 99% of the US the school districts are already set. Where you go to school is determined by your home address or some other rule. None of the humans involved are particularly motivated to find a spot in their hearts to bend these rules out of pity...so why would the algorithms? No one is going to risk their job seating your child in another school district because their nuanced worldview has resolved that you merit being an exception. Bureaucracy is a meat computer.

The reality is that public policy has become algorithmic by public demand. Look at California's "three strikes" law. This is a very simple algorithm that has widespread public support, regardless of actual applicability.

Fairness is also a policy motivation. The public has rejected policies that are unfairly applied. We actually have little desire to grant a policy bureaucrat dictatorial power to apply benefits as they see fit simply by virtue of their having read Descartes.

torpcoms3• 9 years ago

She is only asked about it in the last question, and mentions a New York City politician wanting open source algorithms:

Algorithms make decisions all through his borough, the East Bronx, including where children go to school, where police patrols are assigned, and the schedule for garbage pickup.

Which seems a bit bizarre, open source algorithms would be nice, but the tie in to 'the humanities' seems tenuous at best.

dang• 9 years ago

I imagine someone else made up that title and thought 'close enough'. They obviously don't know Hacker News readers...

I changed the title to a phrase from the article which doesn't cover the whole thing but at least covers some of it.

iainmerrick4• 9 years ago

This is a nice little interview, but the title is very misleading! The word "humanities" only appears once outside the title and the answer doesn't really address the title's claim.

I think it's an interesting topic, though. Do tech companies need more humanities grads? I'm skeptical because plenty of other industries have caused their own social problems, and the humanities haven't saved them. Look at advertising, which was originally built by artists rather than hackers.

It may well be true that big tech companies need to be more socially aware and environmentally conscious, but that doesn't mean "the humanities" is necessarily the answer.

torpcoms3• 9 years ago

I think big tech companies are perfectly aware of how people react to their actions.

ikeyany• 9 years ago

In fact, do they not study reactions in order to maximize the amount of time spent on their platforms?

pjonesdotca• 9 years ago

Actually modern advertising ( post WW2 ) was built by psychologists - the artists just dressed up the intentions. Edward Bernays pivoted from being a propagandist to advertising and virtually created the foundation for Madison Avenue as we understand it. Until social media and it's dopamine manipulation strategies, advertising was focused on the manipulation of the viewer.

iainmerrick4• 9 years ago

Huh, interesting! I was under the impression that the typical ad executive of the 50s and 60s would have studied philosophy or classics or something like that -- wannabe writers and artists who got tempted into high-paying jobs on Madison Avenue, similar to today's wannabe mathematicians and physicists who end up working at tech companies and hedge funds. But maybe that's an incorrect stereotype.

matt40773• 9 years ago

I don't believe she's necessarily calling for the hiring of humanities grads.

What would help, as a start, is an appreciation for the values (and value) of the humanities.

On HN specifically, you frequently see something akin to Schadenfreude when referring to students of the liberal arts serving fries to tech grads. That is to some degree just factually wrong, considering many liberal arts undergrads go on to rather lucrative careers in law, or powerful careers in politics.

But it is also short-sighted, because history has always been a two-step process, with technology enabling us to do new things, and other disciplines enabling us to use these capabilities for something resembling the "common good".

I always like this thought experiment: Would you rather live in a world with the middle age's social/political/law system and today's technology–or the other way around?

This doesn't mean that social and political progress are the exclusive domain of those who studied greek mythology. In fact, this article explicitly argues that it shouldn't be: Hackers should engage with that community.

But what it does take is, sometimes, a bit of humility. Too often, I feel the tech community is looking at technological solutions to social and political problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption debate as examples where you can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for the political process.

The problem with that is, first, that it's wrong: a lot of power rests in politics, and China is a living example that the internet community is currently unable to win a direct confrontation with the power of the state. It is also wrong in that it portraits all governments as equally bad, all laws as subject to changed or broken when expedient, when clearly there are differences in the rule of law between countries, and there are differences in the willingness of politicians to act with integrity.

Secondly, using technology to create facts is somewhat undemocratic in itself. The Federal Reserve may be committing all sorts of errors. But it is hard to deny that derives legitimacy through a transparent, tested, process much more democratic than bitcoin. It is also an illusion to suggest that bitcoin is free of ideology, only because that ideology takes the form of an algorithm decided in the past, ticking away with almost no method to influence it.

icebraining• 9 years ago

I agree that it's an error to describe bitcoin as free of ideology, but regarding the fact that it's an algorithm decided in the past and hard to change, wouldn't that describe Constitutions too?

AnthonyMouse• 9 years ago

Too often, I feel the tech community is looking at technological solutions to social and political problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption debate as examples where you can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for the political process.

You say that as though technology isn't part of the political process.

If the last few years have taught us anything it's that the general population is not a fan of the existing banking laws. But that hasn't resulted in reform because the banks and law enforcement agencies have undue disproportionate political power and prevent that reform.

Technologies that can disrupt the balance of power that keeps the broken status quo aren't apolitical, but that doesn't make them dirty. They're a tool that can be used for good or for ill. It's not as if the other side isn't using their own tools. AES didn't exist in 1950 but neither did ISMI catchers, room 641A, the Utah Data Center, always-on surveillance devices in everyone's pocket, etc.

And resisting government overreach with maths is a whole lot cleaner than doing it with bullets and IEDs, which are also part of politics.

Upvoter33• 9 years ago

I would love to see an article on this topic - this one is not it though. The reason: we struggle at many major universities to determine this balance. On the one hand, students need a lot of CS in order to become mildly proficient; there is just so much to learn. On the other, school is a last chance to expose students to some of the big ideas of the world, the stuff (as Keating says in Dead Poets) that makes life worth living. How can you do both in 4 short years?

mcphage2• 9 years ago

On the one hand, students need a lot of CS in order to become mildly proficient

Most of the CS students learn in school will be obsolete in a few years, and they probably won’t be using it in their job anyway.

But the humanities they learn will be useful their whole lives.

yareally• 9 years ago

If all one gains from a CS degree is knowing a few programming languages, they either weren't paying attention or their school's program was less than stellar.

adamnemecek• 9 years ago

That’s just not true.

jdietrich2• 9 years ago

If it becomes obsolete, then it isn't computer science.

KirinDave5• 9 years ago

What exactly goes obsolete?

Are trees and graphs suddenly not used anymore? Are loops and folds and calculus invalidated? I harp here once a month about how even senior Google engineers and Amazon principles don't know the optimal asymptotic time complexity for sorting 50m pairs of 32 bit unsigned numbers, as the answer changed substantially earlier this decade.

The humanities are more important than they get credit for, but this argument that everything is invalidated and industry teaches you everything is absurd.

metaobject2• 9 years ago

Hogwash. If your CS program isn't teaching the general fundamentals (algorithms, data structures, basic machine architecture, compiler theory, etc) that's unfortunate. But a CS degree isn't a 4 year equivalent of a programming certificate.

junkscience20172• 9 years ago

High school is where students should be getting their breadth. At some point you have to learn what you will do, and balance that out with a realization that more and more school just equals more and more debt.

I would actually like to see the opposite...get rid of all elective coursework and try to graduate students in two years. They'll have an incomplete education, but we all have incomplete educations.

If anything, we as a society and as individuals are creating more harm by pointlessly overeducating ourselves.

internetman55• 9 years ago

Everyone needs the humanities. You go to Princeton and you're gonna find Brian Kernighan teaching computer science and digital humanities crossover class and explaining tech basics to the 'educated laymen'. The people at the top of the field know this; why haven't the rest of us figured this out yet?

Ellen Ullman on the importance of making algorithms accessible to the public

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