Why Algorithmic Fairness Needs Democracy
Our lives are increasingly structured by algorithms. However, a number of well-publicized incidents have raised awareness of the discriminatory power of algorithms (e.g. Google Photos mistakenly labelled black people as “gorillas”, the COMPAS recidivism algorithm is more likely to misclassify African Americans as reoffenders than white Americans, etc.). To the credit of the engineering and research community, efforts have been made to combat discrimination via algorithms and to achieve algorithmic fairness. Yet, I show why algorithm developers and researchers alone could not achieve algorithmic fairness, and point out that it can only be achieved together with the public. In other words, algorithm developers and researchers must work with the public if they want algorithms to be fair, or simply—algorithmic fairness needs democracy.
prerequisite attendee experience level: Beginner
