“The Coding Gaze”
One idea that stuck out to me the most in this TED talk is how judges are using “machine-generated risk scores” (Joy Buolamwini) when deciding how long someone’s sentence will be. The fact that a sentence is set based on an average of other people is one that I struggle to fully wrap my head around. This brings forward many important and urgent questions about how algorithmic bias could in turn have a real physical effect on a person.
Privacy
I was shocked to find out that anything existed with the possibility of “correctly [predicting] your Facebook profile and the last five digits of your SSN for a third of the public, in under three seconds” (Kyle McDonald). The many privacy concerns that arise with this are overwhelming. To have such a large database of information without people’s consent can feel invasive.