Author: Michael Kearns, Aaron Roth

Publisher: Brookings

Publication Year: 2020

Summary: The following article is focused on frameworks for thinking about algorithmic bias and how to address the “unanticipated consequence of following the standard methodology of machine learning: specifying some objective (usually a proxy for accuracy or profit) and algorithmically searching for the model that maximizes that objective using colossal amounts of data.โ€ The article argues that in order to properly address algorithmic bias there must be both 1). A systematic approach for discovering “bad behavior” by algorithms before they can cause harm and 2). A rigorous methodology for correcting it. The crux of the argument is that most issues that we face with algorithmic bias today are only addressed in an ad-hoc way after the fact.