97 Things About Ethics Everyone in Data Science Should Know

Chapter 1. The Truth About AI Bias

Cassie Kozyrkov

Chief Decision Scientist, Google Cloud

No technology is free of its creators. Despite our fondest sci-fi wishes, there’s no such thing as AI systems that are truly separate and autonomous...because they start with us. Though its effect can linger long after you’ve pressed a button, all technology is an echo of the wishes of whomever built it.

Data and Math Don’t Equal Objectivity

If you’re looking to AI as your savior from human foibles, tread carefully. Sure, data and math can increase the amount of information you use in decision making and/or save you from heat-of-the-moment silliness, but how you use them is still up to you.

Look, I know sci-fi sells. It’s much flashier to say “The AI learned to do this task all by itself” than to tell the truth: People used a tool with a cool name to help them write code. They fed in examples they considered appropriate, found some patterns in them, and turned those patterns into instructions. Then they checked whether they liked what those instructions did for them.

The truth drips with human subjectivity—look at all those little choices along the way that are left up to people running the project. What shall we apply AI to? Is it worth doing? In which circumstances? How shall we define success? How well does it need to work? The list goes on and on.

Tragicomically, adding data to the mix ...