About
Julia Pfeiffer & Chiara Ullstein
Julia Pfeiffer and Chiara Ullstein are de founder of ThinkTech (former ConsciousCoders), a Munich based NGO that aims to discuss the impact of AI- powered and digital technologies on our society. The organisation has the motto “Think before you code” and pursuits the mission to foster discussion and interaction between developers as experts of digital technology with decision-makers and the interested society, to scientifically address chances and challenges concerning artificial intelligence and to provide an open platform for working on ideas and projects in interdisciplinary teams. ThinkTech includes researchers from politics, philosophy, computer science, robotics, design, data science and many more fields who are discussing sustainable solutions for a conscious use and implementation of technologies in the future. The organisation is structured in different topic groups that change depending on the need and importance of the topic. Right now, it consists of three main groups: AI & Fairness, AI & Healthcare and Digital Democracy.
Bias in Algorithms
Today, technologies affect our lives. They affect our lives more than we sometimes can imagine. Our daily routine is accompanied, assisted and sometimes even guided by technologies. Technologies are visible, but often also invisible. While we often don’t understand how visible technologies work, it is certainly not so for invisible technologies. This talk discusses the different forms of bias that underly certain machine learning applications and introduces a selection of academic and corporate approaches to act upon them. Thereby, three different levels of sources of unfairness (technological, human-made and system-made) were identified that imply three different levels of harm on society.