Unraveling the Side-effects of Algorithm

The side-effects of algorithms are perilous as it leads to discrimination and intrudes with privacy and Freedom Of Expression.

Algorithms. They are everywhere. Infact, it is the logic behind, the Artificial Intelligence. Right from getting recommendation about a particular gadget that we want to buy online to job applications online, algorithms play a major role. And as the competition amongst tech giants are improving, humans are presented with more cutting-edge technology that applies Artificial Intelligence.

But algorithms are not new. They have been with humans, since the inception of computer programming. And with time, they have evolved into a technology that is either proving useful but most of the time precarious. Many human rights organizations have displayed their apprehensiveness while using this technology. Many governments are put under the limelight, due to the biasness created by AI algorithms. With the recent killing of George Floyd and the ongoing protest in the United States of America (USA), the perilous behaviour of algorithms is very much evident. Even big techs like Facebook are being often questioned, regarding the use of algorithmic biases.

However, the abuse of algorithm is not limited into racial segregation or gender discrimination, in most of the industries where algorithms are applied, its abuse is observable.

Education

The algorithms are applied by educational institutes to retrieve the data of the performance of the students, and to evaluate the performance of teachers and schools. As the COVID 19 pandemic, has thwarted the examination of students all over the world, many countries, including UK decided to grade them based on their performance the entire year.

For this, the UK government used an algorithm known as Ofqual algorithm, which was designed to combat grade inflation and was used for  predicting the grades for A-level and GSCE qualification for the students, as the examinations got cancelled due to COVID 19. However, this algorithm became a nightmare for many students in UK, when more than one-third of the students (35.6%) were downgraded from the mark issued by the teachers due to the biasness of the algorithm. The biasness also observed the students of private school getting A and A⁺  twice than those of comprehensive schools. The whole situation created furore, with Boris Johnson being asked to take down the results.

Police

The algorithms are used by police to determine the criminal hotspot and to determine the person who can be the potential criminal. However, it has been observed that the facial recognition technique used by police can be catastrophic, just like in Breonna Taylors and George Floyd's case, depicting the bias-ness of the algorithms. A Liberty Study in the UK has identified that at least 14 UK police forces has applied this technology for determining the criminal spots, which could lead to racial profiling and discrimination, thus threatening privacy and Freedom of Expression.

Finance

In Finance, algorithms are used for selecting and rejecting the loan applications, or for identifying those applications that require urgent processing. However, the biasness of algorithms in finance is also observed amongst big techs, leading to the Feud between the two companies.

In 2017, a growing debate over the use of algorithms while holding out credit-cards was observed between Apple and Goldman-Sachs, where Apple's co-founder Steve Woznaik raised questions regarding the discrimination by the Goldman Sachs' credit card's algorithm. With the credit card, Woznaik said that he was able to borrow 10 times more than his wife and was still treated equally in repaying the borrowed amount.

This was the second case, where the algorithm bias of the credit card was questioned.

Viral Conspiracy Theories

The algorithms are often used by politicians to influence the voters and for their own political aspirations. In 2016, the Qanon, a baseless internet conspiracy theory was created by Republicans that led the people to believe that many people in US Democratic party and Hollywood were practising Pedophilia and that US president was waging a battle against this secret Cable. Almost two million Facebook users believed this theory, before Facebook decided to ban such conspirational allegations, followed by Twitter which took a similar action, banning 1.5 million accounts who were following this theory.