Everyday decisions in our society — who gets a mortgage loan, who gets a job interview, who is targeted for additional airport screening — are increasingly determined by algorithms.
These tremendously efficient and seemingly harmless computer codes help businesses and governments make sense of complex datasets and aid decision-making by crunching vast databases and drawing conclusions that all too often are mathematically sound but “perfectly wrong.”
Why? Because these tools are developed by humans, and humans are subject to bias that can be passed into the algorithms they build, frequently without the developers even realizing it.
On Nov. 6 (Friday), experts from across the nation will gather virtually to discuss these and other technology- and ethics-related questions at a conference titled Algorithmic Bias: Sources and Responses.
Hosted by the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, the three-hour virtual event will feature a keynote by New York Times bestselling author Cathy O’Neil titled “Algorithms: For whom do they fail?” Attendees will also hear from a wide range of experts who will discuss the root causes of and potential solutions to lessening algorithmic bias.
The conference is free and open to the public, with presentations geared toward a general audience. For a complete list of speakers or to register, visit https://think.nd.edu/registration-tech-ethics/.