Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!kadie
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Loan applications with neural n
Message-ID: <37300001@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 89 05:16:00 GMT
Lines: 22
Nf-ID: #N:m.cs.uiuc.edu:37300001:000:686
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!kadie    Mar  9 23:16:00 1989


In article joe@amos.ling.ucsd.edu (Fellow Sufferer) writes:
> 
> Hecht-Nielsen Corp of San Diego, Ca is doing just such research.
> 
> It seems they've had some success, too. The neural net was quite good at
> predicting loan reliabilty.
> 
> Their real problem was explaining why an applicant was refused: evidently
> there is a law which requires that the institution explain exatactly what
> was wrong with an application.
> 
> That's not quite as easy as it sounds.
> 

 There is another potential problem, even if an explanation is found, it may
 be illegal.

 For example, the ANN may be very sensitive to zipcode. This is called
 redlining; in many places it is illegal.

 - Carl