Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote an article for WSJ explaining how social bias has creeped into web technology and algorithms have "reproduced old patterns of discrimination" creating new challenges in our technology.
The most important take away that I get from reading this article is how seemingly dependent we are on technology to produce results for us in which we expect to be unquestionable, correct, and unbiased. Just because we have these amazing innovations in technologies and exceptional algorithms for these systems to work for us doesn't mean that these systems, created by us are not unlike us. It is still our responsibility as people privileged to have access to and use these technologies to look further, do our own research, pursue more options than what we are just simply being presented on the web or with these technologies. These very systems do not relinquish our responsibilities to look further. It is a huge mistake that we can fathom this being the situation.
That being said technologies are not error-free. As this article stated, the only way we can see where there are errors, is by having a large number of users. We will continue to detect these errors in our use and maybe we can alter our systems algorithms etc.. to produce more accurate, unbiased results. In the resolution of our expectation for sole-dependence, absolute accuracy, and unbiased results (unrealistic), we can begin to have a healthier idea of what these technologies are for and how we can expand our results possibly lessening the reflection of the systems bias onto our own situations, mistakingly translating as biases of our own in modern day society.
The most important take away that I get from reading this article is how seemingly dependent we are on technology to produce results for us in which we expect to be unquestionable, correct, and unbiased. Just because we have these amazing innovations in technologies and exceptional algorithms for these systems to work for us doesn't mean that these systems, created by us are not unlike us. It is still our responsibility as people privileged to have access to and use these technologies to look further, do our own research, pursue more options than what we are just simply being presented on the web or with these technologies. These very systems do not relinquish our responsibilities to look further. It is a huge mistake that we can fathom this being the situation.
That being said technologies are not error-free. As this article stated, the only way we can see where there are errors, is by having a large number of users. We will continue to detect these errors in our use and maybe we can alter our systems algorithms etc.. to produce more accurate, unbiased results. In the resolution of our expectation for sole-dependence, absolute accuracy, and unbiased results (unrealistic), we can begin to have a healthier idea of what these technologies are for and how we can expand our results possibly lessening the reflection of the systems bias onto our own situations, mistakingly translating as biases of our own in modern day society.
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