by Angela Guess
Andrew Heikkila recently wrote in TechCrunch, “Indeed, AI is here — although Microsoft’s blunder with Tay, the ‘teenaged girl AI’ embodied by a Twitter account who ‘turned racist’ shows that we obviously still have a long way to go. The pace of advancement, mixed with our general lack of knowledge in the realm of artificial intelligence, has spurred many to chime in on the emerging topic of AI and ethics. Laura Sydell of NPR decided to drill further into the subject with a news piece asking a relatively simple question: Can Computers Be Racist? Sydell calls upon Latanya Sweeney’s 2013 study of Google AdWords buys made by companies providing criminal-background-check services. Sweeney’s findings showed that when somebody Googled a traditionally “black-sounding” name, such as DeShawn, Darnell or Jermaine, for example, the ad results returned were indicative of arrests at a significantly higher rate than if the name queried was a traditionally ‘white-sounding’ name, such as Geoffrey, Jill or Emma.”
He continues, “Important to note is that the algorithm doesn’t actually look at arrest rates. Even if the ad indicates that somebody may have been arrested, it’s entirely possible that nobody with that name exists in the background-check company’s database at all. Professor Sweeney found this out firsthand when she Googled her own name. It’s impossible to tell what types of prejudices these ads may have incited, subtly or otherwise. In the weighing of two candidates, one black and one white, an employer may run a quick Google search on both names. Even though antidiscrimination laws exist, you never know what types of conclusions a hiring manager might jump to if they see an ad falsely indicating the black candidate had been arrested and the white candidate had not — when the truth could prove exactly the opposite. Racism’s subtle influence can be unexpectedly powerful.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ chefranden