I'm disgusted at recent events circulating the atmosphere of my country. How can someone treat another human so poorly? How can someone who has pledged to protect their country ignorantly KILL one of its citizens? Black lives have always mattered and will continue to matter. So our country needs to CHANGE.
Since this is an AI blog, I will focus this post on Algorithmic Racial Bias; specifically, the unintended misuse of AI in criminal justice systems. Let me explain.
In the judicial system, algorithms are often used to determine an offender's sentencing, bail, and likeliness to commit again. However, these algorithms are trained and driven on historical crime data, which is extremely racially biased against minorities such as the Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. Especially the Black community. Detecting patterns in the datasets, these algorithms are more likely to set high bails, sentences, and risk rates for individuals of these communities, putting them at a huge disadvantage in the judicial system. We cannot let these biased algorithms make decisions regarding the lives of so many people, which simply pushes certain communities further and further into poverty due to the high bails and sentences.
What we can do, however, is use the same AI algorithms for good. Remove that race label from consideration. When a system is deciding a criminal's sentence, give it the individual's profile without labeling him as "black", "white", or "latinx" or stating the color of his hair or mentioning what neighborhood he is from. This way, the decision will be based on sole facts, not bias.
Of course, as with any solution, there are always questions and issues. But I truly believe we can reduce racial bias in the criminal justice system. In a time where our citizens are (hopefully) removing their own biases, we must evolve our technology to do the same. Until our crime datasets are void of human bias, we must let the algorithm fix these errors. I hope to see just algorithms used in every court system in our country, and I hope to see this amazing, powerful #BlackLivesMatter movement make some real change in our ever-improving country.
