If you have rooms that are very homogeneous, that have all had the same life experiences and educational backgrounds, and they're all relatively wealthy, their perspective on the world is going to mirror what they already know. That can be dangerous when we're making systems that will affect so many diverse populations.
Interpretation
Diversity in perspectives is crucial for creating systems that serve everyone fairly.
In this quote, Kate Crawford highlights the risks of homogeneity in decision-making spaces. When groups are composed of individuals with similar backgrounds, experiences, and wealth, their collective viewpoint becomes narrow, potentially leading to systemic outcomes that overlook or harm diverse populations. This emphasizes the importance of including varied perspectives in processes that impact a wide range of communities.
In practice
In a conference about social justice, this quote could frame a discussion on the importance of diverse voices.
If you're not thinking about the way systemic bias can be propagated through the criminal justice system or predictive policing, then it's very likely that, if you're designing a system based on historical data, you're going to be perpetuating those biases.
We need to be vigilant about how we design and train these machine-learning systems, or we will see ingrained forms of bias built into the artificial intelligence of the future.
As we move into an era in which personal devices are seen as proxies for public needs, we run the risk that already-existing inequities will be further entrenched. Thus, with every big data set, we need to ask which people are excluded. Which places are less visible? What happens if you live in the shadow of big data sets?
Only by developing a deeper understanding of AI systems as they act in the world can we ensure that this new infrastructure never turns toxic.
It is a failure of imagination and methodology to claim that it is necessary to experiment on millions of people without their consent in order to produce good data science.
The fear isn't that big data discriminates. We already know that it does. It's that you don't know if you've been discriminated against.
Even the blind and meek and voiceless have gods.
What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make others people's decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or at the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it must be levity.
If you are never alone you cannot know yourself. And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.
There is more than one kind of freedom," said Aunt Lydia. "Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
My need is for safety, fun and to have distribution of resources, a sustainable life on the planet. NVC is a strategy that serves me to meet these needs.
Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
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