‘Trust Me’ – I’m an Algorithm
Trust is fundamental to all our relationships – not just with our family and friends. We trust banks with our money, we trust doctors with our really personal information.
But what happens to trust in a world driven by algorithms? As more and more decisions are made for us by these complex pieces of code, the question that comes up is inevitable: can we trust algorithms?
Join Ali Rae in this first episode of ‘All Hail The Algorithm’ – a 5 part series exploring the impact of these invisible codes on our everyday lives.
In this episode, Ali speaks with Asher Wolf about Australia’s robo-debt scandal, Virginia Eubanks about how inequality is being automated and Sharad Goel about COMPAS – an algorithm being used in courts across the US to assist with sentencing.
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Al kwarizmi is the pride of the Islamic faith.
Y not I even trust lie.
Well i know i cant Trust Al jazeera
Simple answer no
Not when USA trusts God, peace
Codes don’t lie! Gabbage in gabbage out simple we must accept it as future.
When US populace can trust D. Trump then why not to trust algorithm 😇 lol
Most of the U. S. population DOES NOT trust Donald Trump.
@Barbara Smith yeah, a part of it did (:
yes, the dumbing of America is NOW !
@Zainab Abbasi No more than 40% ever, and I think that figure is going down the toilet, too, as he breaks more and more promises to his base. Remember, Hillary beat Trump in the popular vote by nearly three million. Her Electoral College strategy was awful; that’s why she lost.
@Barbara Smith awful indeed, any how let’s hope for the better ahead,
Lord of Heaven bless us., 🙂
dont blame the computer for what the stupid programmer did
Thats VERY MUCH like saying dont blame the gun for what the person holding the gun did. Guns arent inherently bad and neither are algorithms.
But Humans are iherently biased, and the design algorithms and operate guns.
Wow! How revealing! Thank you Aljazeera.
Unless you code it,…NO!
not a chance.
You must have the right to face your accuser, even if they don’t have a face!
A person should not have to deal with machines exclusively! WTF!!?
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Andrew Yang realizes this Yang 2020 !!
Algorithms Have Been Programmed To Suppress The Truth: 1776 * 0.375 = We Win ~
Are algorithms biased, racist, discriminative?
YES! Depending on the coder/employer.
It has been proven,
Not really. Racism/discrimination isn’t really an individual choice. Inclusion generally comes from taking history into account. And algorithms don’t really do that. For example an sentencing algorithms might give longer sentences to people from certain neighborhoods or educational backgrounds because statistics show they’re more likely to be repeat offenders. But the statistics often come from a given historical circumstances. So discrimination isn’t something you do when you defy statistics it happens when you read statistics but do not understand the history and social interactions that cause these statistics.
A good and successful algorithm shouldn’t be bias otherwise it’s wrong think of it as the steps to follow when baking a pie or coming up with a mathematical formula
The State of Colorado is blazingly focus on bias discussion.
Algorithms are programed for one reason – profit . And the greed will continue until humanity is replaced by bots .
Andrew Yang 2020 . Please take a deep look into 21st century thinking. Humanity first !
Algorithms are procedures to solve problems of any kind. In this video she’s speaking for example about algorithms aimed to help judges to make decisions or the government to collect taxes more efficiently. Of course the big companies main problem is “how can I make a lot of money very fast”?
The short answer is: no. Not until the white men who devise those algorithms are aware of their own implicit biases. Which will probably be never, so get rid of the damned things.
not any of yours (google & affiliates)
As long as humans engineer these systems, there will always be a certain bias built into these systems, which are flawed. Those flaws do a disservice to the disadvantaged.
Kindda misleading title. Algorithm is not evil. It’s just a tool. The people that wrote the logic is the actual culprit.
So well done
Computer automation can do all the bullshit the politicians say. But not when the programmers are told to rig it and make criminal embezzlement of the people the forefront of their program. The bad faith actors, are what causes these crimes to happen. Until there are true open good guys, who get nothing but the payment for their work. And want nothing more than that and they have the ethical & moral obligations. Then such scams will always come up.
I don’t trust me. Why would i trust anything?
programmer here it’s AI not algorithm
Another programmer here: AI is based on algorithms as well. They are called deep learning algorithms. Every procedure aimed to solve a problem is called algorithm even whithout involving computers. Every person is applying algorithms in its every day life for common tasks whithout even knowing it. For example, when whashing dishes by hand, usually people first washes all the pieces and then dries all of them because they understand its a more efficient algorithm than wash and dry every single piece. It would take more time. Or when you sort your book collection by author or title or genre you are applying an algorithm to find things faster.
Of course deep learning algos ar more complex than whashing dishes. But still they are procedures to solve problems.
BDS these computer systems&all robo calls or facist decisions (Y)
They are a over regulated governmental technocracies. The algorithms are manufactured by the corrupt minds of these governments. That are by default biased by current trends,statistics,opinion and other carnal prejudices. Of course they can not be trusted.
These people know nothing of technology, too much reliance on technology makes people dumber and dumber.
love the glimpse of how she setup her tools for the interview. amazing!
P
Qm
No.
“Can we trust algorithms?” What?
Unless the algorithms has bugs in it, it is just a block of codes doing exactly the block of code supposed to do. Of course you can trust the algorithms.
What you want to ask is “can you trust the people behind the code?”
Excellent point.
I feel like the title was used to catch the attention…
Thing is as I watch the program, they kind of acknowledge that fact you mentioned towards/at the end of your statement.
Thanks.
computer says no
This video is a home run! Incredible reporting, succinct, and spot on assessment. Everyone affiliated with this video is to be commended.
I don’t trust Oligarchs and their algorithms. Algorithms make me feel insignificant. My unique qualities cannot be coded into a set of rules. It is quite demoralizing to watch a world coming of age that sees my worth as my propensity to consume. What about my soul, my god, my nuance of humanness, my love and compassion?
Can you trust the people that create the algorithms? That is the question.
Funny how people blame the algorithms when the algorithms are written by people. An algorithm is simply a set of steps for solving a problem. Some programmer has written the wrong set of instructions. Any competent programmer would test his/her algorithms thoroughly before releasing the program. It’s not the algorithms that are at fault, it’s shoddy, third-rate programming by humans.
It’s impossible to test all the possible combination of data, environment conditions and actions by the user when testing a program. It would take infinite tests to be completely sure your program has no bugs. Furthermore the applications we use are based on a large set of programs working toghether many of them are not made by the programmer that tests the final program. For example a web application is written in a programming language, running on an application server, that runs on an operating system, reading and writing data on a database accesed through a driver, using third party libraries and integrating whith a third party web service served throught internet routers that are using internet DNS servers and used on different web browser on different platforms on different devices. Can you imagine how many things can go wrong? And it’s just a simplification.
Complexity is the main feature of programming and patience the most important skill of a programmer.
So you must accept that a program is released when we are reasonably confident that it will work how expected in most cases (all tested cases). I know this because it’s my work since 20 years.
Reminds you of skynet, i think im gona watch terminator 1 on netflix lol
Good to see that it wasn’t a simple ‘Algorithms=bad’ diatribe but recognising the wider systems in which algorithms are embedded and whose embedded values and design are key.
The Australian government saying it’s 300M back to the tax payer is bollocks. Tax (ie money to the governments) is money taken out of the economy and shredded after being counted. What they’ve actually done is taken cash out of the economy and that cash pays wages, business income and business profits. We need to understand how economies actually work; all government spending is new ‘printed’ money and that money works best when given to those at the bottom of the tree as they spend all their income in the real economy generating income for all. By giving money to the rich – which is what austerity does in the uk, usa and australia – it makes everyone poorer as they spend their incomes abroad or hide great lumps of it in offshore tax havens. The australian govt took money off the poor that would have been spent in the real economy and made the whole country poorer.
That’s what usually do right wing governments. They are also proposing the flat tax in Italy (where I live) that actually means lower taxes for the richest and no gain for the poorest. Fortunately they are no longer at the goverment at this time.
Eye opening. Thank you. Well done.
Very enlightened by the content.
Did I miss something? These people are getting FREE money….And they are getting FREE money to help them with a temporarily condition to get better living conditions for a better life. When does it become a problem? When the people who use the help that they are getting as a permanent solution to there problem. So it must be the governments fault for helping these people….REALLY SO the question needs to be asked. Should the goverment be helping these people at all? It kinda looks like there is no help for the goverment or the tax payer. Please input now…..On another note A.I. should rule the world because it can’t be bias or discriminate?
Loved this video — very important things to say about algorithms and social inequality. The only part that was a bit weird was when she was talking about going to Troy, NY, while showing a “scenic backdrop” of NYC. Troy is 160 miles from NYC, quite a far distance. The cities and towns in the rest of NY are much smaller, and they’re very close to the rural areas where NY has farming and hiking/eco-tourism.
The racial bias is a shaky argument, but is happening. The reason I think its shaky is why companies would do that. Any information would be accepted happily. Sorry if the video points out why and I missed it.
Instead of worrying about public assistance being too difficult to obtain, lets focus on incentivizing people to work and find those abusing public assistance so we can kick them off and give it to more deserving people. I live in Chicago and there are a lot of Escalades parked in the ghetto.
If we are talking about algorithms of today!!! Why you have to go back to the 70s??? … And what’s up with China, U.K, middle East or S.V and the surveillance??? … welfare today? just go and have a look to what happened at the Obama’s administration era.
Can’t she stop walking?
Alguien sabe cómo encontrarlo sub español??
surely its not that you cant trust algorythms but its that you cant trust the programmer! algorythm will do what its told, programmed for, not what it the right thing to do. you have to blame the creator not the numbers. in this case its the government thats in the wrong, they programmed something that has bugs and should have been fixed bbefore the release.
having brain is goood but good brain in a bad person is dangerous!!!
Protest post against disturbing viewers privacy by this terror advertising. Something opposite algorithm by these terror advertiser.
Hi everyone, Thanks for this program an thanks to Aljazeera. A very important part of this program is final 2 minutes, where we have truth definition of algorithem; It collect the past data to predict the future, it is wrong appaoch and we must change it, to arrive to a moral Algorithem. I wish. From Morocco.
Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.
Everything technology is man-made including algorithms so can we trust a thing man has made to to make himself and others wealthy, ffs no! Never!
You are oversimplifying (if it’s a word in english). Algorithms are not only made to earn money.
The point is that, like you correctly said, algorithms are man-made so they are not perfect, they always have limits and often can contain errors. Like everything humans do. So we should consider them useful but not perfect or almighty. Doing so would be a big mistake. An even fatal mistake since they are becoming every day more pervasive in our lives and our societies. Trust me I’m not an algorithm. I’m a programmer. 🙂
It’s the same line they use for mass gun shootings, it’s not the guns, or it’s creator, it’s the people behind them. So if it’s all man-made, dump the system!
Excellent report 👍🏆🦅
Journalism at its finest. Kudos for the great work!
VERY GOOD AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND CONTRATS TO THE STAFF
ALI REA -GOOD WORK !!
of course, u can trust algorithms, that’s why u are doing them, thing is there are people that don’t understand or relate to mal information and that sets them to a wrong conclusion. as the teacher said, the algorithm is inscrutable, impartial, there is no wrongdoing by the algorithm, the only wrong can be done on how it’s APPLICATED. it’s an artificial logical law, it has no good or bad valence it just goes on the way, the real deal is having some people or a group that are held liable for how it’s used. also, ppl should never get the human FACTOR out of an algorithm cuz it’s made by humans and by nature it has the human factor which prones it to error in the real-life, an algorithm without error works only in an ideal case, not in nature.
The algorithm brought me here. Interestingly, you were using symbols like bridges in the background, but I like your colorful keyboard even more. Problems discussed in Al Jazeera videos are quite catchy but it makes me wonder why won’t you teach people how to control their own minds, thoughts, emotions, focus, decision-making. Won’t it make people break free? People who are a major group having the right to vote. Everyone may see problems and make a video about them and get sponsors like Katar, but no one teaches how to solve them.
Great segment. Thank you 🙂
Algorithms can be trusted but not their creaters .
Whom Can We Trust If No One Is Trustworthy?
One of my favorite quips from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is when Tom is defined as “a glittering hero…the pet of the old, the envy of the young,” and there were “some that believed that he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.” With these few words, Twain captured the essence of leadership in our world. Those who get to the top are the fiercest, most determined, and most ruthless. Today, the latter quality has become so intense that we can no longer believe our leaders, and certainly not trust them to have our best interest in mind.
I am not accusing any leader in particular, or even leaders as a whole. It is simply that in an egoistic world, where people vie to topple one another on their way to the top, the one at the top is clearly the one who trampled over and knocked down more people than anyone else. Concisely, to get to the top in an egoistic world you have to be the biggest egoist.
So how do we know whom to trust? We don’t know and we cannot know. All we know is that we are in the dark.
In a culture of unhinged selfishness, any conspiracy theory seems reasonable, while truth is nowhere to be found. When every person who says or writes something is trying to promote some hidden agenda, you have no way of knowing who is right, what really happened, or if anything happened at all.
The only way to get some clarity in the news and goodwill from our leaders is to say “Enough!” to our current system and build something entirely independent. The guiding principle of such a system should be “information only,” no commentary. Commentary means that information has already been skewed. Information means saying only what happened, as much as possible, not why, and not who is to blame and who we should praise.
Concurrently, we must begin a comprehensive process of self-teaching. We have to know not only what is happening, but why we skew and distort everything. In other words, we have to know about human nature and how it inherently presents matters according to its own subjective view, which caters to one’s own interest. To “clear” ourselves from that deformity, we must learn how to rise above our personal interest and develop an equally favorable attitude toward others. This is our only guarantee that our interpretation of things will be even and correct.
Once we achieve such an attitude, we will discover that the bad things we see in our world reflect our own, internal wickedness. Our ill-will toward others creates a world where ill-will governs, and so the world is filled with wickedness and cruelty. Therefore, all we need in order to create positive leadership—and to generally eliminate ill-will from the world—is to generate goodwill within us. When we nurture goodwill toward others, we will fill the world with goodwill. As a result, the world will fill with kindness and compassion. By changing ourselves, we will create a world that is opposite from the world we have created through our desires to govern, patronize, and often destroy other people.
“What sort of Algo shall we trust?” I think it’s better to lead the thinking. Good vid though!