How big data boosts discrimination

Algorithms can be prejudiced, too

Code
(Image credit: (Images courtesy Thinkstock))

In 1977, the U.S. agency of Housing and Urban Development audited the real estate industry and discovered that African Americans were shown fewer properties (or told they were unavailable) and treated less courteously than white counterparts. Today, the Information Age has introduced modern discrimination problems that can be harder to trace: From search engines to recommendation platforms, systems that rely on big data could be unlocking new powers of prejudice. But how do we figure out which systems are disadvantaging vulnerable populations — and stop them?

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