• What we do
  • The People
  • About Us
  • Why Innovation Africa
  • Contact Us
Innovation AfricaCreating the Future Today
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Feature Articles
  • Innovation
  • Agriculture
  • ICT
  • Technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health
  • Store
  • Contact Us
  • We need open models, not just open data

    November 13, 2014 Editor 0

    Opening_Up_Sonny_Abesamis_Flickr

    Writing my post about AI and summoning the demon led me to re-read a number of articles on Cathy O’Neil’s excellent mathbabe blog. I highlighted a point Cathy has made consistently: if you’re not careful, modelling has a nasty way of enshrining prejudice with a veneer of “science” and “math.”

    Cathy has consistently made another point that’s a corollary of her argument about enshrining prejudice. At O’Reilly, we talk a lot about open data. But it’s not just the data that has to be open: it’s also the models. (There are too many must-read articles on Cathy’s blog to link to; you’ll have to find the rest on your own.)

    You can have all the crime data you want, all the real estate data you want, all the student performance data you want, all the medical data you want, but if you don’t know what models are being used to generate results, you don’t have much. You’re going to be showing black people homes in predominantly black neighborhoods not because you want to keep white neighborhoods pure, but because that’s where the model says they’re most likely to buy. You’re going to be stopping and searching more minority drivers without cause not because you’re prejudiced, but because the model says they’re more likely to be arrested for crimes. And if you stop more minority drivers, you almost certainly will arrest more minority drivers, so the model becomes self-fulfilling.

    Intentions mean nothing when they’re hidden behind a model that makes decisions for you. A recent study of police profiling in my state, Connecticut, showed not only that blacks were more likely to be stopped than whites, but also that when they were stopped and searched, whites were significantly more likely to have something illegal in their cars. How would we build a model from this data, and what would it show? How would we know what the model is doing, if it’s never examined? Would the column with surprising data be dropped because it leads to unexpected and politically unacceptable results? Would it be weighted less than a column on, say, past arrests? If the model isn’t open, how would you ever know? As we become more dependent on modeling, more and more of our world becomes inscrutable. Without the models, you will never understand the way financial markets are manipulated. Without the models, you will never understand how school teachers are evaluated. You may never know why the real estate agent showed you certain houses, or why you’re paying so much for insurance. Is that OK? It all seems nice and scientific.

    Open data enables the democratization of data. It’s important to be able to do your own analysis of public data sets. But if you really want to understand the effect data is having on law enforcement, on insurance, or on education, or on the economy, you need the models. Cathy has documented being stonewalled on requests for the models, which are almost always viewed as proprietary. That’s a problem, particularly when the modellers (not the poets) become the “unacknowledged legislators of the world” (Shelley, A Defense of Poetry).

    Open models: the time has come.

    Cropped image on article and category pages by Sonny Abesamis on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.


    Go to Source

    Related Posts

    • The ethics of artificial intelligenceThe ethics of artificial intelligence
    • Artificial intelligence: summoning the demonArtificial intelligence: summoning the demon
    • Big data’s big ideasBig data’s big ideas
    • Three Ways to Achieve Breakthrough InnovationThree Ways to Achieve Breakthrough Innovation
    • Is Africa ready for Artificial Intelligence?Is Africa ready for Artificial Intelligence?
    • Empowerment and Entrepreneurship: A Theoretical FrameworkEmpowerment and Entrepreneurship: A Theoretical Framework
    Sovrn
    Share

    Categories: Technology

    Tags: artificial intelligence, Connecticut, Creative Commons

    Patents for humanity: Special edition of Technology and Innovation Please RSVP Now for Build for Sustainability: ICT4D Principle 4

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to our stories


 

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions September 21, 2020
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics August 3, 2020
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey! August 3, 2020
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic August 3, 2020
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations August 3, 2020

Categories

Archives

Popular Post-All time

  • A review on biomass-based... 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt ge... 669 views
  • Prize-winning projects pr... 646 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Y... 602 views
  • Test Your Value Propositi... 523 views

Recent Posts

  • SL Crowd Green Solutions
  • Digital transformation in the banking sector: surveys exploration and analytics
  • Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!
  • 5 Tips for Crowdfunding During the Pandemic
  • innovation + africa; +639 new citations
  • SME Innovation: 10 Priorities for Support Post-COVID-19 
  • Africa RISING Annual Progress Report 2018 – 2019 now available
  • Fodder beet feed supplementation delivers dairy success for Ethiopian farmers
  • Using theory of change for outcome-oriented research
  • Africa RISING partners publish soil fertility management guidebook

Tag Cloud

    africa African Agriculture Business Business model Business_Finance Company Crowdsourcing data Development East Africa economics Education Entrepreneur entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship ethiopia ghana Health_Medical_Pharma ict Information technology Innovation kenya knowledge Knowledge Management Leadership marketing mobile Mobile phone nigeria Open innovation Organization Research rwanda science Science and technology studies social enterprise social entrepreneurship south africa Strategic management strategy tanzania Technology Technology_Internet uganda

Categories

Archives

  • A review on biomass-based hydrogen production for renewable energy supply 0.9k views
  • Can blockchain disrupt gender inequality? 669 views
  • Prize-winning projects promote healthier eating, smarter crop investments 646 views
  • Apply Now: $500,000 for Your Big Data Innovations in Agriculture 602 views
  • Test Your Value Proposition: Supercharge Lean Startup and CustDev Principles 523 views

Copyright © 2005-2020 Innovation Africa Theme created by PWT. Powered by WordPress.org