Towards accountable AI in Europe? - The Alan Turing Institute

We are living in the age of Big Data, but data is useless if we do not have algorithms that help us to interpret it. Algorithms are increasingly used in both the public and the private sectors; across industrial sectors for financial trading, recruiting decisions (hiring, firing, and promotions), and for setting insurance premiums. Algorithms help decide whether individuals are desirable candidates for insurance, eligible for a loan or a mortgage, or should be admitted to university. The criminal justice system uses algorithms for sentencing or to decide if someone should be granted parole and to calculate the probability whether someone will commit a crime. Algorithms can – if well-designed and fed unbiased data – make more accurate, efficient, and fairer decisions than humans.