Diverse perspectives on bias in AI

ABSTRACT

In the quest for always wanting to find better and faster ways of doing things, AI has come to be an integral part of our daily lives. There is hardly any sphere of life that is not being touched upon by AI. Given that AI is being used in a range of industries and functions from agriculture, education, music, fashion, healthcare, manufacturing, law enforcement, and even raging wars, to name a few; and impacts people of all age groups and from all walks of life, this article attempts at understanding the ethical perspectives of AI . Regardless of the function and the industry, the discussion below reminds us that since we humans are creating AI, our perspectives and biases are reflected in the tools we create. The article, which documents a panel discussion held with various experts from different domains as listed below, cautions developers to be aware of their inherent biases and ask tough questions while creating solutions that run on AI. As users and consumers of AI, we must engage in critical thinking while adopting a new AI-based solution. We provide the details from the panel discussion organized by Dr. Gaurav Bansal and Dr. Stacie Christian, both from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, on Jan 17, 2022. Dr. Vic Matta led the panel discussion transcription with input from all panelists.

KEYWORDS:

• AI bias
• artificial intelligence
• algorithmic bias
• ethical AI

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vic Matta

Vic Matta Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Analytics and Information Systems (AIS) Department at the College of Business, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. He has ten years of information systems industry experience and teaches courses in Business Analytics, Visualization, and Strategic Use of Analytics. He conducts business consulting and project management executive education workshops. He is an accomplished teacher and has won several teaching awards at the college and university. He has many editorial engagements, is an active member of the Association of Information Systems (AIS) and its Special Interest Groups, and is the Industry Editor for JITCAR.

Gaurav Bansal

Gaurav Bansal is Frederick E. Baer, Professor in Business and full professor of MIS/Statistics at the Austin E. Cofrin School of Business at UW-Green Bay. He is a Distinguished Member (Cum Laude) of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). He currently serves as editor-in-chief for the Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research. He earned his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 2008. He has published in several premier MIS journals such as the Journal of Management Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, and Information & Management. He has served as the president of the Midwest Association for Information Systems.

Francis Akakpo

Francis Akakpo holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Benin in Togo, West Africa. He obtained two master’s degrees in public administration and social work from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He has a passion for making a difference in the lives of young people who, for one reason or another, have made wrong choices that brought them in conflict with the law. Dr. Akakpo’s professional interest areas of practice include clinical social work, treatment of adolescent sexual abusers and mental health, and treatment of issues of concern to African immigrants. His scholarly interests include at-risk families and juvenile delinquents and the role of non-governmental organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, among others.

Stacie Christian

Stacie Christian Ph.D. started her professional career in health care administration as a licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Nursing Home Administrator. For over 20 years Stacie was an executive director and administrator in four health care systems, including nursing homes, outpatient clinics, home health agencies and hospital systems, and an inpatient/outpatient psychiatric center. In 1994, while continuing to work as a health care administrator, Stacie started teaching Health Psychology for the Adult Degree Program, and in over 28 years has taught 10 different courses for Human Development/Psychology and two classes for the Social Work program. Stacie has also taught online for Florida Tech and Rasmussen College, and in person 25 years for Bellin College. In 2005, Stacie left health care to teach at UW-Green Bay full time as an adjunct which led to other opportunities at UW-Green Bay. The other positions Stacie has held at UW-Green Bay is the Pride Center Coordinator, the Interim Director of American Intercultural Center, the Director of Inclusive Excellence and Pride Center. Stacie currently serves as the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Inclusivity for all four UW-Green Bay campuses.

Seema Jain

Seema Jain is an AI evangelist and a data science practitioner. Her over 20 years of IT and business experience span a multitude of business domains at leading organizations like Ford, IBM and Accenture. As a data scientist in the Factory of Tomorrow group at Ford, she was a part of the team that automated complex and highly manual planning processes to determine the allocation of resources (parts and tools) using modern AI techniques. She presented this work at the world’s largest gathering of women technologists at the 2020 Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration (vGHC) conference. Seema has a master’s in data science from University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

Drew Poggemann

Drew Poggemann is currently the Director of Solution Architecture at Heartland Business Systems. Drew has been architecting business solutions for the past 25 years in multiple technologies, verticals, and business domains. A highly certified Microsoft professional with recent technical focus in the areas of Dynamics 365 and the Microsoft Power Platform.

John Rousseau

John Rousseau is the Division Director for the Support Services Division of the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Support Services Division is responsible for many of the technological and data-related initiatives within local law enforcement. Since earning a B.S. in Computer Science at St. Norbert College in De Pere, WI, Capt. Rousseau has focused on finding new ways to utilize technology to increase efficiency within the criminal justice system.

Edward Ward

Edward Ward serves as the Director of Product Development Process Management for Kohler Co.’s Kitchen & Bath Group and is responsible for all product development processes at Kohler. Edward is a retired U.S. Navy Commander and Naval Aviator. He served in numerous leadership roles over his career flying F/A-18s and with U.S. Special Operations. Edward served as Director Aviation Research & Development for U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, Director Operations Joint Special Operations Task Force, and Executive Officer for the Commanding General, U.S. Special Operations Command. Edward is an expert on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), the ethics of autonomous weapons, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Edward was involved in early Department of Defense efforts to develop and deploy AI/ML algorithms to supplement human decision making on and off the battlefield.