Many books focus on the problems of big data and artificial intelligence. Two new ones offer refreshingly positive solutions
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskBooks that decry the dark side of data abound. With menacing titles such as “Weapons of Math Destruction” and “Algorithms of Oppression”, they suggest that there is much more to fear than fete in the algorithmic age. The public is duly alarmed; ditto policymakers. For instance, a proposedBut the intellectual tide may be turning.
For example, women selling goods on eBay tend to receive less money than men for the same item. Apprised of that bias, the website can hide vendors’ personal details until an offer is made, or alert them to higher prices in similar transactions. Meanwhile women looking for jobs are less likely than men to respond to postings that use military jargon such as “mission critical” and “hero”.
“The Equality Machine” buzzes with such examples, revealing a hidden world of coders, data scientists and activists who are working on the technical means to achieve ethical ends, not simply griping aboutsystems, but its main contribution is to reframe problems in constructive ways. A tenet of privacy rules is “minimisation”: collect and retain as little information as possible, especially in areas such as race, gender and sexual orientation. Ms Lobel flips the script, showing how in countless cases of medical diagnosis and treatment, as well as in hiring, pay and the legal system, knowing such characteristics can lead to fairer outcomes.
Ms Lobel’s call to use more, not less, personal information challenges data-privacy orthodoxy. But she insists that “tracking differences is key to detecting disparities.” She advocates a careful loosening of intellectual-property rules to provide more transparency over algorithmic decisions. And she floats the idea of a sort of affirmative action in
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