Writing · 2024
How Machines Learn to Discriminate
A talk on how algorithms trained on real-world data automate existing bias along race and sex — even absent any ill intent.
Abstract
Inspired by Professor Lise Getoor's Ethics & Algorithms course and Ruha Benjamin's The New Jim Code, this presentation shows how — even without malicious intent — algorithms trained on past real-life data tend to automate and amplify existing discrimination on the basis of race and sex. Bias doesn't have to be designed in; it's often inherited from the data we feed the machine.