People expected AI to be unbiased; that’s just wrong. If the underlying data reflects stereotypes, you will find these things.

This is a story about Equality, Equity, Justice and the dark side of Artificial Intelligence.

“Somewhere over the rainbow,

skies are blue,

and the dreams that you dare to dream

really do come true.”

(Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg for The Wizard of Oz)

Part 1: The Truth Of Justice

“The opposite of poverty is justice” — (Bryan Stevenson)

It is no secret I that am an avid fan of children’s books. The simplicity and naivety are borderline of genius, and as we all know, simplicity is the trademark of genius. ‘A Fence, Some Sheep, and a Little Guy with a Big Problem’ by Yael Biran, is definitely ranked high as one of the best children’s stories to exemplify problem-solving.

For those of you not familiar with this story, it is about a little guy who has trouble sleeping, and as the old trick suggests, he starts to count sheep. But instead of boring him to sleep, these sheep find interesting and unique ways to cross the fence; each in their own individual way.

Solving a Fence:

Initially, this book aims to teach children about the different ways that we can look at the world, but, its simple and straightforward illustrations, became very popular in management workshops for visualising the various creative ways of problem-solving, and encouraging out-of-the-box thinking.

The sheep found various ways to get over the fence: jumping over it, trying to breakthrough, ignoring the fence, overthinking the optimal way, or climbing over a pile of dead sheep who failed the task. The story ends with one sheep who took a step back and realised there is a very simple way to get over the fence; she found a free path near the fence (you can see the graphic at the recording of the book, minute 2:23).

For me, as you probably have guessed, this is not a story about creative problem solving for some c-suite class, but an essential lesson of the way we are dealing with Equality, Equity and what real justice is, and of course, we will have a little bit of Artificial Intelligence.

Equality or Equity:

A while ago, I came across an image by Craig Froehle, showing the difference between Equality and Equity.

#racism #fairness #justice #artificial-intelligence #ai