Podcast: On the Basis of Code

Provocation with Purpose is Mindshare's podcast where we talk about emerging technologies and changing trends, and the impact these have on our day-to-day lives.

Pretty much every facet of our lives is controlled by algorithms. From what content we see, to the prices we pay, who we decide to date and who gets the job. In this episode, we’re talking with Rachel Lowenstein from our Invention+ team about algorithm bias and why it matters.

Algorithms are what provide the instructions for machine learning – or artificial intelligence. Because it takes human-created algorithms and learns upon itself, discovering the patterns it finds in data and applies them to make decisions.

But, no one really knows how the most advanced algorithms actually work. Neural networks in deep learning are so complex with thousands of layers that feed into thousands of other layers to make decisions that it’s become impossible for even the brightest minds at Google, MIT, IBM, you name it to actually explain and in many cases, control the algorithms they’ve created.

In tech, it’s referred to as the Black Box problem and it’s a big problem.