I have to share this great video where Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks about the dangers of automating bias, in an interview celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, at the MLK Now event sponsored by Blackout for Human Rights.
AOC said, “Algorithms are still made by human beings, and those algorithms are still pegged to basic human assumptions. They’re just automated assumptions. And if you don’t fix the bias, then you are just automating the bias.”
I couldn't agree with her more.
I'd really like to get a pre-release copy of my upcoming book "Rage Inside The Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All" into the Congresswoman's hands. In the book I try to show how the danger isn't just in automating existing human bias, its in the inherent way that algorithms simplify and categorise people, and how those quantifications of people are historically linked to prejudice.
If any of you know a way that I might get AOC a copy, please get in touch!