On a not-very-sunny day in our Golden State of California, I sat down (virtually) with Dr. Hanie Sedghi to discuss the topic of ethics in Machine Learning. Born and raised in Iran, Hanie is a…

"Roya Pakzad: Hanie, tell me in your own words, what is fairness in machine learning?

Hanie Sedghi: There are many examples and definitions. But let me start with one very well-known example: algorithmic bias in criminal justice systems. In this situation, if we disproportionately feed data about crimes committed by African Americans into a crime prediction model, then of course our model’s prediction will be biased against black communities. This is a skewed sample. On the other hand, if minority groups are underrepresented in our data samples, for example women or transgender individuals,...

On a not-very-sunny day in our Golden State of California, I sat down (virtually) with Dr. Hanie Sedghi to discuss the topic of ethics in Machine Learning. Born and raised in Iran, Hanie is a…

"Roya Pakzad: Hanie, tell me in your own words, what is fairness in machine learning?

Hanie Sedghi: There are many examples and definitions. But let me start with one very well-known example: algorithmic bias in criminal justice systems. In this situation, if we disproportionately feed data about crimes committed by African Americans into a crime prediction model, then of course our model’s prediction will be biased against black communities. This is a skewed sample. On the other hand, if minority groups are underrepresented in our data samples, for example women or transgender individuals, then again, we can expect that our model will have a bias...