INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Yale Fox
Contributor
Yale Fox is founder and CEO at Rentlogic.
We are moving toward a society
controlled by algorithms, but very few of us actually understand how they work
This asymmetry of information is a recipe for disaster
Case in point: Recently in the U.K., analgorithmic failureput the lives of 450,000 woman at risk through a technical error that inhibited
their ability to detect breast cancer.
Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly, and if the tech industry doesn&t take the lead on imposing
oversights to our algorithms, the government may create its own regulations — causing roadblocks to innovation.
We have seen time and time
again the mistake of placing our blind trust in algorithms
Even our best intentions can go awry when we&re working with something we don&t always understand, which has the ability to scale globally
almost instantly.
This isn&t a new concept
For example, since the early 1900s, &scientifically proven& was the trend in innovation, which bled into marketing — only a few people
with highly specialized knowledge, in this case scientists, had the esoteric research along with understanding of DNA and biological
Most people blindly believed this research, and it was exploited to sell products
By the early 1990s, &data driven& beat out &scientifically proven& and became the de rigueur buzz phrase — anything data driven (or
data-related) must be correct because the data said so, and therefore one should trust us and buy referenced products.
Now that has been
superseded by terms like &AI& and &machine learning& — still part of this knowledge only understood by a few that is being used to sell
products.
For years, these terms and approaches have been guiding myriad choices in our lives, yet the vast majority of us have just had to
accept these decisions at face value because we don&t understand the science behind them.
In an age in which many aspects of technology
could still be considered the &Wild West,& and tech gurus &outlaws,& I contend, as a whole, that this is a problem we should get in front of
It is imperative that companies should voluntarily prescribe to Algorithmic Audits — an unbiased third-party verification
Much like a B-Corp certification for companies, these external audits would show that one company is doing the right thing and
course-correct any biases.
If we don&t take a firm lead on this type of verification process, the government may eventually step in and
impose overly cumbersome regulations
The oversight required to do so would be nearly impossible and would eventually impede progress on any number of initiatives.
Technology
adapts faster than even the technology industry can handle, and so adding a layer of governmental bureaucracy would further throttle
Data science is like every other science, requiring experimentation and beta testing to arrive at more effective technologies; regulation
would stifle this process.
We&ve seen similar occurrences before; for example, before insurance companies can work their data into their
actuarial models they need to be certified by the State.There is a growing movement in cities and at companies to address bias in algorithms
Recently,New York City assembled an algorithm task force to look at whether its automated decision system israciallybiased
According to aState Scooparticle,&The City uses algorithms for numerous functions, including predicting where crimes will occur, scheduling
building inspections, and placing students in public schools
But algorithmic decision-making has been deeplyscrutinized in recent years as it become more commonplace in local government, especially
with respect to policing.&
The tech industry funding a research council, with the goal of creating best practices to elevate the quality of
algorithms,is far better than the alternative.According to Fast Company, algorithms now even have their own certification, &a seal of
approval that designates them as accurate, unbiased, and fair.& The seal was developed byCathy O&Neil, a statistician and author who
launched her own company to ensure algorithms aren&t unintentionally harming people.
In the effort to practice what I preach, we did exactly
this at my firm, Rentlogic, a company designed to give apartment buildings grades based on a combination of public data and physical
Because our ratings are based on an algorithm that uses public data, we wanted to ensure it was unbiased
We hired aforementionedWeapons of Math Destructionauthor, Cathy O&Neil, who spent five months going through our code to prove it faithfully
represented what we say it did
This is paramount for creating trust from the public and private sectors as well as our investors;people now care more than everabout
impacting in companies creating a positive impact.
With more and more stakeholders turning their attention to algorithms, I hope we will see
more firms independently doing the same
In order for the tech industry to maintain integrity and faith in algorithms — and the public trust — we must take it upon ourselves to
seek third-party audits voluntarily
The alternative will be disastrous.
