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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