Humans vs. AI: The Battle Continues
This week we look at the constant push and pull between AI and humans. Technology can help us, but not if it’s constructed to uphold the biases of its creator. This and more in our top 7 roundup of things you should read this week. Brought to you by Brendan, Joe, Jules, Kate and the rest of the ThinkShout team.
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(1) A bill to check for bias in AI? Yes, please.
Machines that are built by humans inherit the bias we have. A new bill would require large companies to audit their machine-learning systems for bias. We have to teach computers to be less human by pulling out the bias we’ve created. [The Verge]
(2) Think you’re being discreet online?
Think again. [The New York Times]
(3) Discrimination from airport scanners. It’s a thing.
It’s not news that racial profiling is alive and well at airports, but turns out full-body scanners fail to recognize thick hair and certain head coverings — contributing to racist profiling. [Vox]
(4) A Website Tale of Warning.
Our team found this website redesign nightmare an amazing read: Hertz is suing Accenture for “never delivering a functional site or mobile app.” [The Register]
(5) Emojis make the internet…safer?
Ok, not really. But, the fact that we eagerly install updates to our phones with the hopes of gaining new emojis means we also install bug fixes and security features. “Emoji, like the toy at the bottom of a cereal box, are an impressively effective feature for marketing major version updates.” [Increment]
(6) Mistakes…we’ve all made a few.
You know that phrase “the only real mistake is failing to learn from your mistakes?” We’re not sure that’s the exact wording, but no matter: We love this post from The Economist on learning from their data visualization errors. [The Economist]
(7) Starting up is hard to do.
It’s nothing revolutionary: companies like Stitcher, the BBC, and Spotify have made exclusive content a priority, but Luminary is the first company to structure its entire launch and marketing pitch around the idea of ad-free content. And the podcast industry is in a tizzy over it. [The Verge]