Are the decisions made by AI really as unbiased as we think they are?

Featured:

Distinguished Professor Fang Chen: Executive Director of The Data Science Institute, UTS

Doctor Ben Swift: Senior Lecturer, School of Computing, ANU

Produced and Presented by: Andrew Herlinger

Music by Trev Lewis from Hagfilms, Drakensson, and TheoTer. Sourced from Freesound.org

As AI and machine learning systems become more advanced, the more we see them enter into different aspects of our day to day lives. We may think that the mathematical functions the machine learning algorithms are trained on are free from the mortal flaw of bias human decisions are cursed by – but the unfortunate reality is that they may not be as unbiased as we want them to be. How do we ensure these digital decision makers are operating fairly? This quandary is quickly becoming a significant concern as AI driven processes become involved in choices that have far-reaching impacts on our daily lives. Think: Digital Futures’ producer Andrew Herlinger investigates.