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What is unconscious bias

What is unconscious bias?

Using Facebook as an example, they use algorithms, to determine what to show you in your news feed from all the tons of information that is out there. What is ultimately shown to you is based on the past information you have shown an interest in. Unconscious bias is much the same, in any given moment your brain is bombarded with 11 million of pieces of information. Consciously, however, you can only be aware of 40 bits. This means, there were tons of vital information about a given situation that you missed. Without much thought, therefore, we make snap judgements about people's race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or nationality, especially when we are tired or rushed. Our biases impact how we see the world, how we treat people and the decisions we make. We are all biased by the way. We wouldn't be human if we wasn't. The conclusions we come to are influenced by our backgrounds, environment, personal experiences and stereotypes.  Awareness of humans unconscious bias was increased with the Implicit Association Test. Check out our resources page for more educational videos on the topic.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Computer systems that act and think like humans.  Like humans too, they can translate languages, recognise voices, recognise faces and from reading text can decide if you are happy, sad or even in love. For example, just like a family member can recognise your voice when you speak to them over the phone, it is artificial intelligence that can recognise your voice when you speak into your phone. You'll hear the term machine learning banded around quite a bit too. This is the arm within AI that is creating the most excitement at the moment. It's where machines have literally been coded to learn just like how humans learn. Give it information (data) and just like a human, it can learn from its mistakes until it comes up with the right strategy. It just does it a hell of a lot quicker than we do and with less psychological issues :).

Why should I care?

Diversity and Inclusion is a billion dollar industry yet next to zero has been achieved in creating a more inclusive environment. Recent reports have highlighted that the situation is about to get worse, where the unconscious biases that we hold about women and minority groups are being passed on to and perpetuated in the decision making technology of Artificial Intelligence. Please sign my campaign for the Government to educate the general public in a jargon free way to spot and override its impact.