AI reveals, injects gender bias in the workplace - BenefitsPro

While lots of people worry about artificial intelligence becoming aware of itself, then running amok and taking over the world, others are using it to uncover gender bias in the workplace. And that’s more than a little ironic, since AI actually injects not just gender, but racial bias into its data—and that has real-world consequences.

A Fox News report highlights the research with AI that reveals workplace bias, uncovered by research from Boston-based Palatine Analytics. The firm, which studies workplace issues, “analyzed a trove of data—including employee feedback and surveys, gender and salary information and one-on-one check-ins between managers and employees—using the power of artificial intelligence.”

Bias, AI, Gender Bias, RacismBrigitte BellanDecember 26, 2017BenefitsPro, Gender Bias, Racial Bias, Fox News

Artificial Intelligence: Making AI in our Images - Savage Mind

Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Sally Applin

Hello! I’m Sally Applin. I am a technology anthropologist who examines automation, algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the context of preserving human agency. My dissertation focused on small independent fringe new technology makers in Silicon Valley, what they are making, and most critically, how the adoption of the outcomes of their efforts impact society and culture locally, and/or globally. I’m currently spending the summer in a corporate AI Research Group where I contribute to anthropological research on AI. I’m thrilled to blog for the renowned Savage Minds this month and hope many of you find value in my contributions.

Bias, AI, Gender Bias, Sexism, Racism, Women in ScienceBrigitte BellanSeptember 10, 2017Sally Applin, Anthroplogy, Savage Minds

How to make a racist AI without really trying - ConceptNet Blog

Rob Speer

Perhaps you heard about Tay, Microsoft’s experimental Twitter chat-bot, and how within a day it became so offensive that Microsoft had to shut it down and never speak of it again. And you assumed that you would never make such a thing, because you’re not doing anything weird like letting random jerks on Twitter re-train your AI on the fly.

My purpose with this tutorial is to show that you can follow an extremely typical NLP pipeline, using popular data and popular techniques, and end up with a racist classifier that should never be deployed.

There are ways to fix it. Making a non-racist classifier is only a little bit harder than making a racist classifier. The fixed version can even be more accurate at evaluations. But to get there, you have to know about the problem, and you have to be willing to not just use the first thing that works.

AI, RacismBrigitte BellanAugust 26, 2017Conceptnet, Rob Speers, Luminoso, GitHub

Machine Bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.

ON A SPRING AFTERNOON IN 2014, Brisha Borden was running late to pick up her god-sister from school when she spotted an unlocked kid’s blue Huffy bicycle and a silver Razor scooter. Borden and a friend grabbed the bike and scooter and tried to ride them down the street in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Coral Springs.

Just as the 18-year-old girls were realizing they were too big for the tiny conveyances — which belonged to a 6-year-old boy — a woman came running after them saying, “That’s my kid’s stuff.” Borden and her friend immediately dropped the bike and scooter and walked away.

But it was too late — a neighbor who witnessed the heist had already called the police. Borden and her friend were arrested and charged with burglary and petty theft for the items, which were valued at a total of $80.

Compare their crime with a similar one: The previous summer, 41-year-old Vernon Prater was picked up for shoplifting $86.35 worth of tools from a nearby Home Depot store.

Prater was the more seasoned criminal. He had already been convicted of armed robbery and attempted armed robbery, for which he served five years in prison, in addition to another armed robbery charge. Borden had a record, too, but it was for misdemeanors committed when she was a juvenile.

Yet something odd happened when Borden and Prater were booked into jail: A computer program spat out a score predicting the likelihood of each committing a future crime. Borden — who is black — was rated a high risk. Prater — who is white — was rated a low risk.

Transparency, Bias, RacismBrigitte BellanJuly 22, 2017ProPublica, Academic, Criminal Justice, Risk Assessments

Inspecting Algorithms for Bias - MIT Technology Review

Courts, banks, and other institutions are using automated data analysis systems to make decisions about your life. Let’s not leave it up to the algorithm makers to decide whether they’re doing it appropriately.

It was a striking story. “Machine Bias,” the headline read, and the teaser proclaimed: “There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.”

Racism, AIBrigitte BellanJuly 22, 2017MIT Technology Review, Matthias Spielkamp

Is Your AI Racist? - American Banker

WASHINGTON — The question of whether an algorithm making underwriting decisions can be racially biased has long gnawed at lenders fearful of inadvertently running afoul of consumer protection laws. Now, the question has sparked interest from Congress.

AI, Prejudice, Racism, Gender BiasBrigitte BellanJuly 2, 2017American Banker, Law, Congress

AI robots learning racism, sexism, and other prejudices from humans, study finds - The Independent

Artificially intelligent robots and devices are being taught to be racist, sexist and otherwise prejudiced by learning from humans, according to new research.

A massive study of millions of words online looked at how closely different terms were to each other in the text – the same way that automatic translators use “machine learning” to establish what language means.

Some of the results were stunning.