Forecasting a Different Future for Digital Rights
Source: KRISTINE GLORIA & ASPEN DIGITAL | JULY 15, 2021
Large-scale automated systems have tremendous influence over our day-to-day lives — from facial recognition technologies to targeted advertising to hiring algorithms to automated scoring in education. Elements of this control can seem downright dystopian, reminding us just how intertwined algorithmic systems are with almost every element of society. These decisions, made on our behalf by often unexplainable or opaque computing techniques, raise concerns over one’s ability to maintain their autonomy and agency as well as calls into question how we experience the world.
At the core of the algorithmic bias critique is whether those who have the power to create, enable, and disseminate such systems do so equitably. Research suggests that it is far from the case. Take for example research on an algorithm widely used in US hospitals to allocate health care to patients, which found that it had been systematically discriminating against Black people based on an assumed signal of total health-care costs accrued in one year. This merely scratches the surface of case studies found across various verticals and domains. As such, we have seen a growing number of interventions — from technical solutions to regulatory propositions — that are attempting to mitigate potential harmful effects of algorithmic bias. For a longer analysis on this topic, we invite you to read our new white paper.