A Comprehensive Study on Bias in Artificial Intelligence Systems: Biased or Unbiased AI, That's the Question!

A Comprehensive Study on Bias in Artificial Intelligence Systems: Biased or Unbiased AI, That's the Question!

Elif Kartal
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/IJIIT.309582
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Abstract

Humans are social beings. Emotions, like their thoughts, play an essential role in decision-making. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) raises expectations for faster, more accurate, more rational, and fairer decisions with technological advancements. As a result, AI systems have often been seen as an ideal decision-making mechanism. But what if these systems decide against you based on gender, race, or other characteristics? Biased or unbiased AI, that's the question! The motivation of this study is to raise awareness among researchers about bias in AI and contribute to the advancement of AI studies and systems. As the primary purpose of this study is to examine bias in the decision-making process of AI systems, this paper focused on (1) bias in humans and AI, (2) the factors that lead to bias in AI systems, (3) current examples of bias in AI systems, and (4) various methods and recommendations to mitigate bias in AI systems.
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Introduction

Studies in Artificial Intelligence (AI) aim to transfer human-specific abilities such as thinking, perception, questioning, decision-making, and inference to computer systems. The adventure of AI, which officially began with John McCarthy in the 50s, started with a focus on rule-based tasks at first. Technological innovations and developments in recent years gave rise to the development of more advanced AI algorithms, thus raising the bar on the studies in this field. People closely observe the developments of these newly emerging AI technologies, and it raises some concerns (Gherheș, 2018; Schank & Bareiss, 2021), the best known one being, “What if AI (robots) take over the world one day?”. Perhaps the most crucial reason behind this concern is the lack of knowledge about AI technologies, because uncertainty may cause anxiety and fear. Another factor is pessimistic or misleading news on the subject. For instance, the AI chatbots used in call-centers, which can listen, answer or provide the necessary guidance using speech recognition, don’t yet have the ability to communicate on a similar level to humans. Two chatbots called Bob and Alice developed a secret, incomprehensible language among themselves and this alarmed the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit enough to shut them down. This incident has raised concerns about the AI and its future. However, it was later found that the bizarre language these bots were using was the result of the algorithms used in the development process, which didn’t conform to the rules of English used by humans, and allowed the bots to communicate more effectively with each other rather than with people (Fauzia, 2021; McKay, 2017).

Leaving such extraordinary concerns aside and seeking answers to more real questions will be more beneficial in shaping the future. One such question is “Will AI take my job?” for blue and white-collar workers today. There are studies on jobs that AI systems can replace and future positions such as robot designers, AI consultants for the public, technology addiction consultants/coaches, creativity coaches (Morikawa, 2017; Rouhiainen, 2020). Kai-Fu Lee, an AI expert and the CEO of Sinovation Ventures, states that jobs that take “less than five seconds of thinking” will be among the first to go (Rouhiainen, 2020). He said that receptionist and factory worker positions would take the first place in this respect. Then there will be jobs such as banking, commerce, and insurance expertise where data is included in the decision stage (Gershgorn, 2017).

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