Introduction

With the tremendous progress in computing and its derivative fields in recent years,
computer-related technologies have been greatly enhanced and widely used. Among
these advanced tech, machine learning and AI are two key technologies that are
beginning to be used on a large scale in various fields. However, these technologies
have both advantages and disadvantages. While they have greatly improved
efficiency, their inherent flaws have also been revealed as well. Namely unobjective
data and computational logic leading to biased results. As exposed by Amazon's
recruitment AI, biased and prejudiced algorithms significantly affect the fairness of
female applicants in the hiring process (Dastin, 2018). Similarly, the chatbot released
by Microsoft in 2016, was trained by public data posted by anonymous attackers, and
introduced racist bias in less than an hour after its first debut on Twitter due to built-in
internal learning features (Vincent, 2016). This shows that unobjective algorithms and
AI can have detrimental effects on both designers and users, not only increasing
concerns about the usefulness of the technology, but also in terms of caused results
that can lead to inferior experiences and even make unacceptable social impact. This
essay will discuss the main reasons for the emergence of algorithmic bias, as well as
giving effective ways to solve this problem and a brief conclusion.

Dastin, J. (2018, October 11). Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed
bias against women. U.S. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight-
idUSKCN1MK08G

Vincent, J. (2016, March 24). Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist

asshole in less than a day. The Verge. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from
https://www.theverge.com/2016 /3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

This team experience was fun for me, and it made me feel good to work with
students from all over the world. The chat group we created played an important role
in the whole task and it made me realize that communication is an important thing.
Also, collaborating on an article was an unprecedented experience, which required
everyone to work with each other, each doing his or her part, much more efficiently
than one person. I also found that if everyone played to their strengths, every detail
would be done better. Just like someone is good at finding information and someone
is good at organizing ideas, if we all work hard together, things can be done quickly
and with high quality.
First of all to solve the AI bias, we need improve the quality of its input data. If we are
able to make the AI distinguish between conscious and unconscious presumptions
about gender, religion, race, disability, or other characteristics that define a protected
class, we can eliminate the biased decisions of the system. Actively searching for
sources of bias in the data, examining the way it was collected and the principles of
the people annotating the data would introduce us to the roots of the problem. After
getting a general idea we can inspect predictions for certain subgroups, starting with
legally protected ones, and compare the results in terms of fairness and truth value.
Even if we find where the problem is it’s hard to identify why it exists, because many
AI systems are similar to black boxes and we have limited insight on the decision
process. Getting a better understanding on the predictive path of the AI will help give
a better chance to detect and eliminate the unfair bias elements in the system. This
can also be done with the help of third party tools, for example IBM’s AI Fairness 360
Open Source Tool Kit. In the end, a system crated by human to evolve on it’s on is
unstable and unaware of human principles, this can be eliminated with the help of a
team composed of diverse members that could notice several unfairness that other
people from other subgroups couldn’t.

Body 1

There are two main reasons for the bias in machine learning and algorithms. The first
one is the inherent bias of the data and the imperfections of the algorithms system
themselves, and the second is the lack of effective human intervention and result
selection. Firstly, machine learning and algorithms do not positively produce data,
which means that a large amount of raw, unfiltered data is being directly to the
algorithmic process, this biased data will be systematically adopted and processed,
thus leading to many biased results. As Johnson (2020) argues that machine learning
only inherits the bias set by human in the data, algorithms cannot generate bias by
themselves, this bias arises from the large number of social samples and human bias
hidden in the training models. Secondly, since algorithms are not perfect, they only
mechanically identify and repeat objects, and if the executor does not detect the
problem with the results in time, biased results will be adopted. As lexalytics reported
that Google Maps mechanically identified the “X” in the street “Malcolm X Boulevard”
as the Roman numeral “10”, which caused confusion among many people. In short,
the original biased data and the algorithm's flawed nature led to these problems, and
the bias brought by the raw data will make the algorithm outcome even more
inaccurate, and these false results without human intervention will often create more
problems.
Body 3

To address this issue, there are two effective ways to reduce the appearance of
these discriminations and biases. First, priority needs to be given to ensuring the
neutrality and objectivity of the raw data, and to continuously iterating the algorithm
through large sample learning and upgrading to achieve more accurate results.
Obtaining unbiased raw data requires controlling the variables in the sample as much
as possible, for example, collecting data separately in equal proportions of the
human population, and avoiding artificially created antagonism and bias in data
collection for different cultural backgrounds, education, and ethnicity. Also, for the
implementers of the algorithm, they should not add antecedent results based on their
positions and personal preferences to ensure the validity of the data results. Second,
machine identification and algorithms can never be separated from human control
because these means can only be applied to a specific environment and changing
the application object is likely to produce biased results. For example, in the
generated results human screening more reasonable, more in line with the
requirements of some, more output in line with the actual benefits of the results. In
short, the application of purer, unbiased raw data can reduce the generation of
discriminatory results. At the same time, an appropriate increase in human control
and selection of machine learning and algorithms is more conducive to ensuring the
production of results that are in the interest.

Conclusion

In summary, a series of studies have found that current machine learning and
algorithmic recognition do not produce completely neutral and objective results in
certain domains. On the contrary, some unequal results may even harm users or
cause distress. These problems arise mainly because the data itself is biased and
the algorithms only inherently repeat people's biases. Also, since machines and
algorithms are not perfect, they are likely to produce unrealistic results in the
absence of human control and intervention. To address these issues most effectively,
one is to use data that is free of bias and discrimination as input, and to collect data
equally across groups. Second, humans need to be more involved in the comparison
and screening of algorithmic recognition results. Human intervention can reduce the
generation of irrelevant and unreasonable results and make up for the shortcomings
of machine learning and algorithms.
With the tremendous progress in computing and its derivative fields in recent years,
computer-related technologies have been greatly enhanced and widely used. Among
these advanced tech, machine learning and AI are two key technologies that are
beginning to be used on a large scale in various fields. However, these technologies
have both advantages and disadvantages. While they have greatly improved
efficiency, their inherent flaws have also been revealed as well. Namely unobjective
data and computational logic leading to biased results. As exposed by Amazon's
recruitment AI, biased and prejudiced algorithms significantly affect the fairness of
female applicants in the hiring process (Dastin, 2018). Similarly, the chatbot released
by Microsoft in 2016, was trained by public data posted by anonymous attackers and
introduced racist bias in less than an hour after its first debut on Twitter due to built-in
internal learning features (Vincent, 2016). This shows that unobjective algorithms and
AI can have detrimental effects on both designers and users, not only increasing
concerns about the usefulness of the technology but also in terms of caused results
that can lead to inferior experiences and even make an unacceptable social impact.
This essay will discuss the main reasons for the emergence of algorithmic bias, as
well as give effective ways to solve this problem and a brief conclusion.

Algorithmic bias stems from the source of its creation; Artificial intelligence is made
by learning from large amounts of data. If this data is biased and unfair then the
resultant algorithm will inherit those faulty traits. A lot of the data being used to
develop AI is biased and this is problematic. Microsoft's chatbot can be overlooked
as faulty due to the data being community-fed, however, even pre-established data is
biased. An example of this can be seen through the “Faces in the Wild” dataset which
was used to benchmark facial recognition algorithms. The data was “70% male and
80% white” (Forbes, 2021) and due to its clear bias, the Association for Computing
Machinery declared that it resulted in “profound injury” to “specific demographic
groups” (Forbes, 2021). Another common origin for error in AI is the people
developing it. A lot of the engineers are white and this has resulted in errors. In 2013,
a Twitter user pointed out that Google Maps pronounced Malcolm X Boulevard as
Malcolm Ten Boulevard highlighting the “lack of Black engineers on the Google Maps
team” (Lexalytics, 2021). The algorithm was trained to pronounce street names with
single letters as Roman numerals, overlooking the mispronouciation of Malcolm X’s
name. AI algorithms are new and we are only beginning to see their limitations. If we
want to incorporate more of this technology into our society many things must be
fixed, however, data sets and the diversity in the engineers behind these algorithms
are a starting point.

First of all, to solve the AI bias, we need to improve the quality of its input data. If we
are able to make the AI distinguish between conscious and unconscious
presumptions about gender, religion, race, disability, or other characteristics that
define a protected class, we can eliminate the biased decisions of the system.
Actively searching for sources of bias in the data, examining the way it was collected
and the principles of the people annotating the data would introduce us to the roots of
the problem. After getting a general idea we can inspect predictions for certain
subgroups, starting with legally protected ones, and compare the results in terms of
fairness and truth value. Even if we find where the problem is, it’s hard to identify why
it exists. Many AI systems are similar to black boxes and we have limited insight into
the decision process. Getting a better understanding of the predictive path of the AI
will help give a better chance to detect and eliminate the unfair bias elements in the
system. This can also be done with the help of third-party tools, for example, IBM’s AI
Fairness 360 Open Source Tool Kit (Saifee, 2022). In the end, a system created by
humans to evolve on its own is unstable and unaware of human principles, this can
be eliminated with the help of a team composed of diverse members that could
notice severe unfairness that other people from other subgroups couldn’t.

AI has the potential to benefit the economy and society as a whole. The idea of
tackling AI biases in a way helps us fight against the discriminatory ideologies
currently prevalent in our society. The acceptance of the presence of such an issue
in itself is the first step towards solving the problem. AI completely depends on its
training data to come up with solutions, it is rather obvious that the lack of complete
data may in a way be a major cause of such biases. While a team of engineers takes
up the role of feeding in the information, they may fail to ensure the large-scale
representation which plays a major role in tackling the possibility of biases. Selecting
the correct training data is key. For example, psychological research conducted may
include results from people between 20 to 30 years of age. However, this does not
represent the whole population and hence cannot pose as a reliable source of the
training dataset. Instead feeding in research that is applicable to all age groups could
possibly boost the functioning of the system as a whole while ensuring appropriate
representation. Establishing a team that works towards eradicating the overlooked
biases in a dataset could help a company enhance the functioning of its algorithms
and resolve all issues before they contaminate the whole system. These small
changes could make a huge difference in how the system attempts to make human
life easier while unlearning itself of human prejudices.