S

ometimes, life can feel a
little too settled, and too
many good things can
become a boring thing. A bad
grade, stepping in some gum or
even plucking your eyebrows a
little too thin can completely
ruin an otherwise good week
when you have nothing else
going on. But when you and
your roommate are in an all-out
turf war or you just impulsively
kissed your best friend, those
small inconveniences can be
brushed off. Creating drama by
and for yourself provides the
gift of scale — the little stuff
becomes inconsequential.
Drama keeps us alive. Gossip
brings us closer. Good advice
can make a bad situation good
again. But “bad” advice? Bad
advice is exciting, obnoxious
and you can’t help but watch
and see what will happen.
That is not to say that my
intentions are to ruin your life

— I just think we could all take
more risks. How many advice
columns represent that voice in
your head, the one that says to
do the right thing and to handle
a sticky situation with absolute
grace, dignity and courageous
vulnerability? Nearly all of
them. And how many advice
columns give voice to the little
devil on your shoulder? Zero.
Sometimes a situation calls
for a bit of pettiness, a morally
gray choice or a straight-up
meltdown.
And remember, I am neither
your therapist nor your mother.
I am just some person on the
internet hoping to make a bad
situation at least a little funny
for both you and me. I will never
claim that my advice is helpful
in the long run, but by taking it
you may end up looking really
cool to your future self, your
parents’ friends from college,
your nieces and nephews, and
your barber.
Maybe every once in a
while I’ll take it easy on you.
I’ll put on my best listening

ears and gracefully transcribe
my response in 16-point-size,
gorgeous calligraphy and have
someone else type it — those
will be the nice ones, when
being impulsive and silly just
doesn’t quite fit the situation.
I may be blunt and tell you
something you didn’t want
to hear, because sometimes a
recommendation for a good
movie or a local hot yoga studio
is the only answer to your woes
that I can provide.
So let’s “goss” (imagine me
lying across your bed with a
little handheld mirror, putting
on the red lipstick that I found
in
your
mom’s
bathroom
cabinet) and get into it. Tell
me
your
most
ridiculous,
embarrassing
and
toughest
problems, and I’ll try to help
you find some fun in it or just
tell it to you straight. You
can only make truly stupid
decisions
and
blame
them
on your youth for a little bit
longer. I would love the chance
to make your life a little more
interesting.

Opinion
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

I

magine you are applying for
a job. After filling out the
necessary
information
on
the company’s website, attaching
your resume and writing a cover
letter, you click “submit” and then
wait to hear back. A few weeks
later, you check your inbox to
find an automated email response
informing you that, after a thorough
review of your application, you
have not been selected for the
position. Questions begin to flash
through your head: What was
wrong with my application? Was
my cover letter the problem? Was
I simply unqualified? However,
there’s a strong likelihood that the
company’s decision was not based
on any of these factors. Rather, as
is the case with as many as 75% of
businesses, the decision to reject
your application was most likely
made by an algorithm.
As
a
growing
number
of
businesses are seeking out ways
to streamline hiring and reduce
labor costs, Artificial Intelligence
has taken the corporate world by
storm. However, these benefits do
not come without repercussions
— the use of AI in recruitment
processes is slowly unfolding
as a silent perpetrator of social
inequality.
According
to
the
World
Economic Forum, the automation
of hiring procedures is “stopping
an estimated 27 million people
from finding full-time work.”
The candidates that are primarily
filtered out by AI softwares
are
largely
composed
of
demographically-marginalized
individuals. A study by Harvard
Business
School
identified
previously incarcerated persons,
veterans, refugees, immigrants
and those with mental or physical
disabilities as “hidden workers”
who lose out on job opportunities
in part because they are often

unjustly screened out by hiring
algorithms. Despite the fact that
an astonishing 88% of these
individuals were shown to be fully
qualified for the position, they
were nonetheless disqualified for
not matching specific criteria.
You
may
find
yourself
wondering how all of this is
possible. The idea that automated
and allegedly unbiased machines
are replicating human prejudices
seems counterintuitive. However,
the ultimate problem does not
necessarily lie in the machines
themselves, but rather within the
information and datasets upon
which they are built.
Data is rarely neutral — instead,
it is often tarnished by historical
instances of human injustice and
partiality that plague information
archives.
As
emphasized
in
an article by Brookings Press,
“Algorithms,
by
their
nature,
do
not
question
the
human
decisions underlying a dataset.”
Rather, they are based on trends
of reproduction that can cause
them to replicate “the very sorts of
human biases they are intended to
replace.” The resulting algorithmic
code has the potential to accept or
reject a candidate’s resume based
solely on the presence (or absence)
of specific keywords.
For instance, Amazon came
under fire back in 2018 after its
hiring
algorithm
was
shown
to
disproportionately
favor
male
candidates
over
female
ones. Coded to replicate hiring
patterns in the company over
the previous 10 years, which had
been overwhelmingly male, the
algorithm was found to penalize
any
resumes
that
contained
keywords such as “women’s.”
Unable to mitigate these biases,
Amazon was forced to scrap the
project completely and temporarily
revert to more traditional hiring
methods.
This bias has been found to
impact not only the screening
phases of the recruitment process

but also the initial “sourcing”
phase.
During
the
sourcing
phase, companies will attempt to
attract certain candidates to the
position through methods such
as advertisements and online job
postings. The specific websites
and feeds selected to display
these advertisements are often
based on algorithmic predictions
— specifically, ones that calculate
a
candidate’s
likelihood
of
succeeding in the position based
on their background information.
In a study conducted by the
Harvard Business Review, these
technologies were found to be
extremely biased, often targeting
ads based on prejudiced and
stereotypical
information.
The
study found that cashier and
secretary positions were targeted
toward an audience that was
disproportionately female (85%,
to be exact) and taxi companies
targeted audiences that were 75%
Black. The study points out that
“this is a quintessential case of an
algorithm reproducing bias from
the real world, without human
intervention.”
As is demonstrated in both of
these instances, if left unchecked,
the use of these algorithms
threatens to exacerbate historical
trends of discriminatory hiring
practices in the United States.
Fortunately, many efforts aimed
at mitigating these issues have
already begun to emerge.
For instance, various pieces
of legislation, such as a recent
bill passed in New York City,
seek to remedy these issues by
requiring companies to conduct
annual bias audits of any AI
softwares and technologies used.
Mainstream media is also starting
to call attention to the issue,
as demonstrated by the recent
release of the Netflix documentary
“Coded Bias,” which exposes the
discriminatory
practices
often
contained in artificial intelligence.

TATE MOYER
Opinion Columnist

Introducing Stirring the Pot with
Giselle: Let’s get weird

W

ith the start of a new
year
comes
many
fond
memories
as
well as infinite chances to look
back on the year just passed.
From Spotify Wrapped to massive
annual datasets, there is always
something new to learn. As part
of our look back on the past year,
Shein was confirmed as the
most Googled fashion brand of
2022, thereby making it the most
popular fashion brand of the year.
For anyone unfamiliar, Shein is
a $100 billion fast fashion brand
that has faced almost every type
of criticism a company could face,
and for good reason. It is relatively
well known that Shein overworks
and underpays its employees;
many are reportedly working
18 hours per day and making
the equivalent of about $556 per
month in yuan currency.
Furthermore,
somewhere
between 700 and 1,000 new
items are listed on Shein’s website
daily, according to CEO Molly
Miao. With our modern society’s
tendency toward fast rotation of
clothing, many articles end up
being dumped in landfills before
they have a chance to sell, thus
contributing to the 101 million
tons of clothing in landfills every
year, which is an unfathomable
amount.
So, how does Shein maintain
its popularity considering the
controversy that surrounds it?
Their
prices
are
ridiculously
cheap
—
usually
lower-cost
and typically more trendy than
secondhand clothing. Shein also
uses Artificial Intelligence to
test for customer interest prior to
executing wide-scale production,
which allows them to funnel new
and trendy pieces into the market
more quickly than other brands,
among other strategies to reel
consumers in.
Now, I could go on and present
some ways to counteract the
effects of Shein on the clothing
industry and the environment, but
that has been done before. People
have already offered somewhat
viable cures to the disease of
fast fashion, such as investing in
sustainable fashion so that, with

time, prices decrease (in the same
manner that organic food has
become increasingly affordable
over time). Likewise, we can turn
toward rental fashion sites to
decrease consumption while still
appealing to modern society’s
desire for a fast rotating wardrobe.
Moreover, tangible legislative
measures such as the FABRIC Act
in the Senate and the Fashion Act
and the Fashion Workers Act in
New York have been introduced to
the respective legislative bodies.
If passed, these laws would assist
in circumventing the issue of fast
fashion by improving workers’
and models’ rights, as well as by
increasing brand transparency
with respect to environmental
and social impacts.
This is not to say that these
measures and solutions have
cured us of the blight of companies
like Shein, but more so that these
solutions have been entertained
and written about time and time
again. However, through the
popularity of companies like Shein
something deeper is revealed
about our society: fast fashion
reflects a lost generation.
We live in a postmodern
world, an intellectual movement
classified
by
the
rejection
of
certainty
and
truth
in
our
universe.
The
basis
of
postmodernism essentially resists
everything modernism asserts
about rationality and reason. In
fact, every art and intellectual
movement rises from the ashes of
what came before, as a response
to prior opinions that are no
longer sufficient in establishing
an understanding of the world.
Thus, there exists an inherently
destructive sense to any newer
opinions that lead artists and
intellectuals, since much of their
purpose is to discredit what came
before.
The relation of the ebbs and
flows of intellectual movements
to Shein and fast fashion might
not seem immediately evident, but
postmodernism reflects a society
that no longer has an identity —
it defines itself by resisting what
came before without a new idea on
which to ground the present. As
such, Shein and fast fashion are a
perfect reflection of the reality of
our current intellectual world.
Postmodernism’s
lack
of

societal definition has allowed
for the powers of capitalism to
stand in as a source of meaning,
resulting in a lack of definitive
nature that can be seen in even
the clothing that we buy. Take, for
example, the aforementioned fast-
paced rotation of items on Shein’s
website, showcasing a lack of
permanence and a constant need
for the “next best thing.”
Or, we can turn to the broader
trends of consumerism. Over
the past 40 years, the amount of
clothing consumed has increased
by five times while the amount
of clothing thrown away has
simultaneously
doubled.
In
summary, we are consuming
much more than we did in the
past, as well as throwing away
more
of
that
consumption,
reiterating the lack of permanence
that
postmodernism
exhibits.
This constant influx and outflux
of
clothing
demonstrates
a
society that is incapable of finding
meaning. Those in our generation
seem to be lost in a world of
constant rotation. My parents,
on the other hand, have items in
their closets that are decades old
because they were able to reap
satisfaction from their time.
Fast fashion is a product of
these corrosive mentalities that
have wedged their way into
our minds and driven our daily
behaviors. It gives us an outlet
to exercise the uncertainty that
postmodernism is founded upon.
Of course, the issue of fast fashion
can be centered around themes of
sustainability and ethics, but there
is a side of this debate that is being
ignored. An uncomfortable truth
that the prominence of companies
such as Shein reveals about
the world: We are a generation
without meaning or definition,
and there is something terrifying
about that.
We grasp the thousands of new
products introduced every day
like a lifeline, as if this particular
set of clothes will somehow mean
something more than the one
before. And in this search for
meaning, people will keep buying
from Shein as long as our world fails
to provide it, because when it comes
down to it, the search for meaning
is the root of everything people do.

GISELLE MILLS
Advice Columnist

Artificial Intelligence: the silent
perpetrator of social inequality

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The social fabric wears thin like
cheap polyester: A lesson from Shein

ANNA TRUPIANO
Opinion Columnist

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