Biased Bots: Human Prejudices Sneak into Artificial Intelligence Systems

Biased robots are here with human prejudices seeping their AI

Most of the AI experts believed that the artificial intelligence will offer objectively rational and logical thinking for the robots and systems in future. But a new study has is showing a darker path for AI wherein the machines are acting reflection so human and the AI is prejudiced with the human notions.

It has been found when the common machine learning programs are trained online with the ordinary human language then they are likely to acquire the cultural biases and this can get embedded right into the patterns of their wording. The ranges of these biases are quite erratic from the preference to certain lower to having some objectionable view about the race or gender.

Security experts has stated that it is extremely critical and necessary to address the rise of biases in the machine learning at the earliest as it can seriously impact their reasoning and decision making in future. In upcoming days we will be turning to the computers for processing a number of things ranging from the natural language translation for communication to making online text searches as well as image categorization.
Fair and just

Arvind Narayanan, an assistant professor of computer science at the Center for Information Technology (CITP) at Princeton has stated that the artificial intelligence should remain impartial to the human prejudices in order to offer better result and judgment making skills. He asserted that fairness and bias present in the machine learning has to be taken seriously as our modern will depend on it in near future.

We might soon be finding ourselves in the center of such situation wherein modern artificial intelligence system will be frontrunner is perpetuating the historical patterns of bias within the system without even us realizing it. If such events comes in the future then it will be completely socially unacceptable and we will still remain good old times rather than moving forward.

An objectionable example of bias seeping into AI

Just a few years ago in 2004, a study was conducted by Marianne Bertrand from the University of Chicago and Senhil Mullainatahan from Harward University. These economists conducted a test wherein they sent out about 5000 identical resumes to over 1300 job advertisements.

They only change the name of the applicants’ names which happened to be either the traditional European American or the African American and the results they received were astonishing. It was found that the European American candidates are 50 percent more likely to get an interview than the African American candidates. Another Princeton study has shown that the set o African American comes more unpleasant associations than the European American sets when it is run through automated system run by the artificial intelligence based systems.

Therefore it has become a necessity to distance the AI from the biases and prevent the cultural stereotypes from further perpetuation into the mathematics based instruction of the machine learning programs. It should be taken as the task of the coders to ensure that machines in future reflect the better angles of the human nature.

Are Killer Bots About to Do Away with Smartphone Apps?

Bots - Little Digital Assistants

Smartphone app has been around and Apple tends to have two million on them in its App Store while Google Play seems to have some few hundred thousand more than that. The Aggregate downloads of app have crossed over 150 billion mark. However some have been speculating whether the apps would be replaced by something lesser, smarter and quicker.

Due to artificial intelligence software, bots have been programmed to chat to humans through text, remove the meaning and then perform on it. They seem to be little digital assistants. One would be talking to a bot at any point of time when you see a live chat box opened up on the website of a retailer or while ordering a taxi or flowers via chat platforms like WeChat and Facebook Messenger.

According to the research by Nielsen, irrespective of the various options on apps, the average number used is 27.The issue with apps and their apparently unending updates is that they tend to consume the storage volume of the smartphone alarmingly rapidly. Developers tend to often get a raw deal. One estimate recommended that 94% of the cash created by the apps in the App Store of Apple to only 1% of publishers and those firm also received 70% of all the downloads.

Bots Natural Successors of Apps

Ted Nash of Tapdaq, a veteran app developer while still a teenager, had commented that one of the worst things regarding the App Store was the App Store since it is a walled garden. He stated that oversights of Apple on all the slows down development and forces programmers of app would comprise of specific chunks of code which tends to look after adverts, usage statistic together with the other metrics.

Further to this, he added that the issue of making apps to function across various devices as well as keeping up with the changes to Apple’s software, it is no wonder some people seemed to be disillusioned. Head of mobile development at accounting software firm Sage, Kriti Sharma, stated that apps use to be the big thing but several more people seem to be messaging that posting on social media.

 This could be the reason why she is of the belief that bots are the natural successors to apps, the interface is promptlyacquainted to consumers.

Pegg – Assisting Small Business Makers

Ms Sharma had begun her career in coding at Barclays where she had co-created its Pingit banking app and supervised its mobile portfolio. She is of the belief that for companies or brands which preferred meaningful interactions with the customers, a chat intervened by a bot would work well.

A bot known as Pegg is being developed by Sage which tends to act as a smart business assistant and would be assisting small business makers in keeping track of outgoings as well as expenses, which would be making the tracking of cash flow much easier.

Ms Sharma had commented that bots do not have to be super-complicated though over a period of time they could add a lot more value for a customer. She states that bots seems to be more reliable since good progress has been made in writing artificially intelligent software.

Moreover since several companies now tend to have massive data they could utilise in fine-tuning the responses of bot. She also claims that bots also tend to have speed with which they can be developed, organized as well as updated

Bots Explained

Bots/Chatbots Popular Models for Software

Bot is a software which has been designed to automate the kinds of jobs one tend to do usually on their own, such as making a dinner reservation, fetching and displaying information or adding an appointment to your calendar. While technology to simulate conversation with the computer has been around for several years, bots or chatbots are a popular model for software. The common kind of bots, chatbots tend to simulate conversation and often live within the messaging apps or are designed to look that way. It seems like one is chatting back and forth as one would do with a human being.

Some of the bots can handle various customer service requests that would usually need a telephone call to a human agent. For instance, a bot has been released by Taco Bell which permits you to order and pay for tacos via an automated chat conversion. Other bots such as X.ai could be helpful in scheduling the meeting for you wherein one could just add the bot to the email thread and it could handle the back and forth conversation essential in scheduling the meeting, makes you aware when the same is arranged and adds it to your calendar.

Bots Capable of automating all Types of Things

As the bot technology tends of progress, the thinking is that the bots would be capable of automating all types of things, possibly even things as complex as the taxes. Chatbots have already been there in several places where one tends to communicate, mainly messaging apps that lend themselves to conversational interface. Bots are there in Slack, which is the business-focused messaging service, several of which tend to help with the work-connected task like expenses or to-do-lists. Kik Messengers having about 275 million registered users has announced recently a bot store which comprise of one bot, to send people Vine videos and another to get makeup suggestions from Sephora.

For years, Twitter seems to have bot, such as bots which tweets about earthquakes as soon as they are registered or a Domino’s bot which permits you to order a pizza by tweeting a pizza emoji. Several of the users are expecting Facebook to roll out a bot store of some type at its annual F8 conference for software developers which would mean that these bots would soon be operative within Messenger, the messaging app.

Companies Stacking Big on Bots

Test of the virtual assistant bot known as `M’ had already begun, though the product seems to be available for a few people and mainly powered by humans. Several of the companies which are building the apps used on the phones are building bots. A group of companies are staking big on bots inclusive of Microsoft and Slack which tend to have easy access for bots.

The technology which tends to power bots, artificial intelligence software has been progressing intensely due to the sharp interest from key Silicon Valley powers such as Google and Facebook. Facebook which tends to have 900 million Messenger users is said to get into bots and many envisage this as a big probable opportunity and where Facebook seems to go, the rest of the industry tend to follow.

Slack which imports bot-based services has also developed radically to two million daily users which bot makers as well as the investors view it as a possible profitable market. It is helpful that messaging is seen as a new opportunity particularly in interacting with a corporation in the same personal space one would generally interact with a colleague.