A.I. Is Only Human
Can we keep our flaws out of artificial intelligence and its decision-making?
A.I. Is Only HumanCan Artificial Intelligence be Biased?
Chicago Booth researchers are exploring how discrimination gets embedded in algorithms—and how to address that.
Artificial intelligence could take important decisions out of the hands of biased people and flawed processes and entrust them to supposedly objective algorithms. The dream is of prison sentences untinged by racism, and hospital care that prioritizes the neediest patients with pinpoint accuracy.
But the algorithms that power these platforms are only as good as the data supplied to them and the humans who build them. Chicago Booth’s Sendhil Mullainathan finds evidence that a faulty algorithm unfairly excluded Black patients from hospital care-management programs. Even when algorithms have good data, Chicago Booth’s Jean-Pierre Dubé sees ways in which they could be unintentionally racist.
However, Mullainathan’s research also points to the potential for enormous gains in both efficiency and equity using the transformational power of AI. With the right regulatory regime in place, he argues, algorithms can be scrutinized for bias without sacrificing their potential benefits.
“The Achilles’ heel of all algorithms is the humans who build them and the choices they make about outcomes, candidate predictors for the algorithm to consider, and the training sample. A critical element of regulating algorithms is regulating humans.”
— Jon Kleinberg, Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Cass R. Sunstein, “Discrimination in the Age of Algorithms,” Journal of Legal Analysis, April 2019.
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Can Regulation Rein In Algorithmic Bias?
A Q&A on managing the social impact of A.I.
Can Regulation Rein In Algorithmic Bias?
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Law and Order and Data
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Holding Algorithmic Bias at Bay
A new initiative from Booth’s Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence aims to improve health-care algorithms for underrepresented groups.
Holding Algorithmic Bias at Bay
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