Is Model Bias a Threat to Equal and Fair Treatment? Maybe, Maybe Not.

Summary: There is a great hue and cry about the danger of bias in our predictive models when applied to high significance events like who gets a loan, insurance, a good school assignment, or bail. It's not as simple as it seems and here we try to take a more nuanced look. The result is not as threatening as many headlines make it seem. Is social bias in our models a threat to equal and fair treatment? There's even an entire conference dedicated to the topic: the conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* – it's their acronym, I didn't make this up) now in its fifth year.