The Human Factor is Essential to Eliminating Bias in Artificial Intelligence

More and more technology and digital services are built upon, and driven, by AI and machine learning. But as we are beginning to see, these programmes are starting to replicate the biases which are fed into them, notably biases around gender. It is therefore imperative that the machine learning process is managed from input to output – including data, algorithms, models, training, testing and predictions – to assure that this bias is not perpetuated. Bahar Gholipour notes this bias as AI's so-called'black box' problem -- our inability to see the inside of an algorithm and therefore understand how it arrives at a decision. He claims that'left unsolved, it can devastate our societies by ensuring that historical discrimination, which many have worked hard to leave behind, is hard-coded into our future.'