Technology Is Biased Too. How Do We Fix It?

At first glance, COMPAS appears fair: White and black defendants given higher risk scores tended to reoffend at roughly the same rate. New laws and better government regulation could be a powerful tool in reforming how companies and government agencies use AI to make decisions. Last year, the European Union passed a law called the General Data Protection Regulation, which includes numerous restrictions on the automated processing of personal data and requires transparency about "the logic involved" in those systems. However, existing federal laws do protect against certain types of discrimination -- particularly in areas like hiring, housing and credit -- though they haven't been updated to address the way new technologies intersect with old prejudices.