The Origins, Present, and Future of “Algorithmic Bias”
Event Information
Description
Join the Ken Kennedy Institute and the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) for a view into how our inherent biases have shaped and will continue to shape our lives. From discussions in Congress to articles in Science, the issue known as “algorithmic bias” – intelligent technologies that reflect and reinforce societal biases – has become one of the most prominent issues in computer science. In this talk, Dr. Brent Hecht, Associate Professor of Human-centered AI at Northwestern University and Director of Experiences and Devices at Microsoft, will first cover his research from late last decade that helped to establish the existence of algorithmic bias. Next, he will discuss more recent work that has examined algorithmic bias along an important but under-explored dimension: the urban-rural spectrum. Finally, he will highlight what he believes to be the single most important direction of future research in this space: mitigating bias in who benefits economically from intelligent technologies. In doing so, he will discuss his recent work on technological means through which we can create a computing paradigm that more broadly distributes its winnings.