I received an email this week from a couple friends I have not kept up with over this year of social isolation. In the Before Time we saw each other regularly at dances, and sometimes they stayed with us when they were in town for a visit. Their letter was a lovely recounting of their lives over the last year. Where they lived, what they enjoyed in that area, exciting things they are doing in their work, and how much they miss all of us. It was so sweet and so human, as I took in paragraph after paragraph all my love and longing for them welled-up in my eyes and ran down my cheeks to mingle with my smile. I feel very family about these two humans. They were part of my world when it was complete and unencumbered by constant Covid considerations. Missing them feels like missing a part of myself. A part of myself I almost forgot about. I set that part of me on a shelf when the pandemic rolled into town with the assumption I would pick it back up in just a few short weeks. Well, we all know what happened instead: the lockdown went on and on and on… and here we are today. Still staying at home, still ordering take-out, still seeing the world through Zoom. That part of me is still sitting on the very same shelf, cob-webbed and covered in dust. I have not had access to that expression of me in long enough that it feels like another lifetime. An entirely different me in an entirely different world. In truth, it is. I have grown and changed significantly over the last year, shedding old narratives, adopting new practices, and cultivating new awareness. I don't know what the world will be like after Covid, but it will definitely be different because we will all be different. It will also be different because it can no longer be the way it was. The world has shifted in many ways, some irreversible. Working from home has been so successful that many companies are planning to continue the practice indefinitely. Events that went online had significantly increased attendance and an expanded audience, so many organizers plan to include a remote component in future events even after large in-person gatherings become safe. The vaccine distribution is strikingly uneven around the world, so global travel remains a distant ambition for who knows how long. Technology is ubiquitous. We work on computers and attend virtual conferences. We communicate through our phones and on social media. We take yoga class and visit with friends and family through Zoom or other platforms. Children continue to attend school online in many places. It is nearly impossible to separate ourselves from our tech. Some of that is an adaptation to Covid life, but we have been weaving technology more completely into the fabric of our lives for a long time. This week I attended a panel discussion about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and how it is being used to shape our world. The whole presentation was fascinating and I learned many things. One thing struck me as especially significant from a human impact perspective. The mathematician on the panel explained that an algorithm is comprised of two elements: historical data and a definition of success. Using an algorithm assumes the future will occur as the past has occurred. That means we are building systems that assume what has happened in our past is what will definitely happen in our future. But if we do not also consider why things happened the way they did, we are operating without an understanding of why things may happen a particular way in the future. We may unconsciously blame a victim for their circumstances, or perpetuate racist, sexist, and classist systems that disadvantage a particular swath of humanity. These tech tools can be incredibly valuable in some applications. Machine learning and artificial intelligence is used widely by financial institutions to identify and stop potential fraud. These systems create a profile of our usual activity from our historical banking actions and flag transactions out of line with our individual norms. In this context, it doesn't matter why I shop at a particular online retailer or why I usually spend less than $100. It only matters that suddenly there are multiple large transactions from a website with a foreign IP because that might not be me. The bank flags those transactions and I get a phone call to confirm whether I am the one shopping. This is the kind of tech I want working in the background. There are other examples where using these tech tools has a harmful impact, such as hiring, teacher performance ratings, and predictive policing. In these applications, the why matters immensely. If a child enters fourth grade at a kindergarten reading level and the teacher helps them achieve a second or third grade level by the end of the year, that is positive and worthy of celebration. But an algorithm where success means a student reading at fourth-grade level will mark that as a failure. If that "failure" is then attributed to the teacher as a reflection of their skills and ability, they might be denied a promotion or fired. But it wasn't the teacher who failed in that example; it was the tech. There are many similar examples of companies or organizations hoping to remove bias from important decisions by relying on tech instead of humans. But what really happens is a more uniform and impersonal application of whatever bias is built in to those systems when they are created. Instead of cultivating awareness of what is happening as it occurs and having important conversations to make difficult decisions, we are outsourcing that burden to our tech. In doing so, we also outsource the guilt of making a decision that might hurt someone. We did not exclude those people, they were excluded by the Almighty Algorithm. That might help some folks sleep better at night, but it doesn't hire more qualified candidates, promote better teachers, prevent crime, or make safer cities. Many things in our world could do with an update. The future is unfixed, and contains nearly infinite possibilities. The kind of world we create is only limited by our imagination. Our current tech is all the result of somebody's imagination. In the future, we will all be updated versions of ourselves, using updated versions of our technology. If we do it well and with thoughtful intention, we can upgrade to systems of greater equity, justice, and well-being for everyone. Information and Inspiration
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorJaydra is a human in-process, working to make the world a better place. Sharing thoughts, feelings, and observations about the human experience. Archives
March 2024
Categories |