Module1 Lectures
Module1 Lectures
and Society
Introduction
China's social credit system keeps a critical eye on everyday behavior:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onm6Sb3Pb2Y
Machine Learning
Big Data
Note on Terminology
https://mc.ai/no-machine-learning-is-not-just-glorified-statistics/
AI, Ethics,
and Society
Overview
Google Analytics
In-Class Exercise
https://aboutmyinfo.org/
⬣Birthdate
⬣Gender
⬣Zipcode
⬣Big data allows organizations
to now target specific
demographics
⬣This was not possible 20
years ago
⬣Big data also allows
organizations to do a lot more
than targeted advertising
Ethics vs Law
AI, Ethics,
and Society
Ethics vs Law
Right Wrong
Ethics versus Law
Law:
⬣ Is the system of rules of conduct established by the government of a society to
maintain stability and justice
⬣ Defines the legal rights and duties of the people and provides the means of
enforcing these rights and duties
Ethics:
⬣ defined as the set of moral principles that distinguish what is right from what is
wrong.
⬣ Moral Standards: rules about the kinds of actions that are morally right or
wrong, as well as the values placed on what is morally good or bad
Discrimination Law
⬣ Race (Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1991)
⬣ Color (Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1991)
⬣ Sex (Equal Pay Act of 1963; Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1991)
⬣ Religion (Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1991)
⬣ National origin (Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1991)
⬣ Citizenship (Immigration Reform and Control Act)
⬣ Age (Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967) (over 40)
⬣ Pregnancy (Pregnancy Discrimination Act)
⬣ Familial status (Civil Rights Act of 1968)
⬣ Disability status (Rehabilitation Act of 1973; Americans with Disabilities Act
of 1990)
⬣ Veteran status (Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of
1974; Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act)
⬣ Genetic information (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act)
Evidence of Discrimination/Bias
⬣ Equality of opportunity is typically concerned with ensuring that
decision-making processes treat similar people similarly on the basis
of relevant features, given their current degree of similarity
⬣ Equality of outcome is a notion of equality of opportunity that forces
decision-making to treat seemingly dissimilar people similarly, on the
belief that their current dissimilarity is the result of past injustices
Family Profession
Value judgments
and perceptions The
Individual
of the observer
Friends Employer
Consequence-based Rule-based
Example Scenario
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/technology/human-
resources-artificial-intelligence-humu.html
Data Collection
AI, Ethics, and
Society
Data Collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDR8qGmyEQg
Information
Privacy
⬣ Information privacy (or data privacy) is
the relationship between the collection and
dissemination of data, technology, the
public expectation of privacy, legal and
political issues surrounding them
(Wikipedia)
⬣ The ability to collect information on
individuals, combine facts from separate
data sources, and merge this data with
other non-personal types of information
has resulted in archives of information
that were previously unheard of
⬣ This aggregation of data also permits
organizations to build databases of facts
(and non-facts) with frightening, perhaps
unethical, outcomes
Financial Services Modernization Act, or Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Act of 1999
⬣ Requires due notice by financial organizations to customers so that they
can request that their information not be shared with third parties
⬣ Ensures that the organization’s privacy policies are fully disclosed (and
distributed annually) when a customer initiates a business relationship
⬣ Specifies that any proprietary information shall be used explicitly for providing
services, and not for any marketing purposes
⬣ Stipulates that carriers cannot disclose this information except when
necessary to provide their services
Facebook https://www.domo.com/learn/data-never-sleeps-5
⬣ Valid consent must be explicit (opt-in based) for data collected and the purposes
data is used
⬣ The data subject has the right to request erasure of personal data related to them
⬣ A person shall be able to transfer their personal data from one electronic
processing system to and into another, without being prevented from doing so
⬣ Has force of law, effective May 2018. This is a EU Regulation, rather than a EU
Directive (and has steep penalties).
⬣ The law is extraterritorial, i.e. it applies to any organization which stores, transfers
or otherwise processes data from EU citizens, regardless of whether that
organization is based in the EU or not.
Fairness and
Bias
AI, Ethics,
and Society
Fairness and
Bias
What is
Bias?
Algorithmic Bias Concepts
⬣ Types of Bias
⬣ Measures of Bias
A predisposition, partiality, prejudice, preference, or predilection.
What is Bias?
Economics
Age
Appearance
Geography
Occupation
Forms of Biases
An Incorrect
Assumption
about AI
⬣ Discrimination is prohibited on the
basis of membership in a protected
class-group
⬣ Law prohibits unfair treatment or
decisions made on the basis of
human characteristics; which
results in harm suffered by persons
⬣ People's decisions include objective
and subjective elements, thus, they
can be biased
⬣ If algorithmic inputs include only
objective elements, they thus should
not be biased
COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling
for Alternative Sanctions): 137-questions questionnaire
and predictive model for "risk of recidivism"
Google Ads
Algorithmic
Bias
Amazon Scraps Secret AI-Recruiting tool
Example
Confounding matters...
Algorithmic processing:
Measurement of data
Biases in Data
⬣Limited and coarse features
⬣Sample size disparity
⬣Less data (by definition) about minority populations
⬣Skewed sample
⬣Feedback loops
⬣Tainted examples
⬣Features that act as proxies Unintentional
⬣Conscious prejudice Intentional
Biases in Data
Problem
Fairness
Tension
⬣Between different
notions of fairness
⬣Between fairness
and accuracy
⬣Between different
methods for
achieving fairness
Fairness
⬣ Suppose we are a bank trying to fairly decide who should get a loan
⬣ i.e. Who is most likely to pay us back?
⬣ Suppose we have two groups, A and B (the sensitive attribute)
⬣ The simplest approach is to remove the sensitive attribute from
the data, so that our classifier doesn’t know the sensitive attribute
These measures compare the protected group against the unprotected group:
⬣ Risk difference = RD = p1 - p2
(Mentioned in UK Law)
⬣ Issue: Consistency might also result in everyone being equally treated badly.
Then is an individually fair algorithm the correct thing to do?
The BS of
Stats