Code Shift lab aims to confront bias in AI and machine learning

They can be used to decide everything from which video we're recommended to watch next on YouTube to who should be arrested based on facial recognition software. But these algorithms, and the data used to train them, often replicate the harmful social biases of the engineers who build them. Eliminating this bias from technology is the focus of Code Shift, a new data science lab at Texas A&M University that brings together faculty members and researchers from a variety of disciplines across campus. It's an increasingly critical initiative, said Lab Director Srividya Ramasubramanian, as more of the world becomes automated. Machines, rather than humans, are making many of the decisions around us, including some that are high-risk.