Sexist snow plowing and other data bias unearthed in new podcast
The ever-excellent Big Picture Science, which is produced at the SETI Institute and has proven itself one of my favorite podcasts over the years, has a superb new episode on Data Bias in their ongoing Skeptic Check series. Here’s their summary of the episode that provides some truly eye-opening revelations:
Sexist snow plowing? Data that guide everything from snow removal schedules to heart research often fail to consider gender. In these cases, “reference man” stands in for “average human.” Human bias also infects artificial intelligence, with speech recognition triggered only by male voices and facial recognition that can’t see black faces. We question the assumptions baked into these numbers and algorithms.
Guests:
- Caroline Criado-Perez – Journalist and author of “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men”
- Kade Crockford – Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts
- Amy Webb – Futurist, founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, and author of “The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity”
