Theory In, Theory Out: How social theory can solve problems that machine learning can't
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Research at the intersection of machine learning and the social sciences has provided critical new insights into social behavior. At the same time, scholars have identified myriad ways in which machine learning, when applied without care, can also lead to incorrect and harmful claims about people (e.g. about the biological nature of sexuality), and/or to discriminatory outcomes. Here, we argue that such issues arise primarily because of the lack of, or misuse of, social theory. Walking through every step of the machine learning pipeline, we identify ways in which social theory must be involved in order to address problems that technology alone cannot solve, and provide a pathway towards the use of theory to this end.
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