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Could the FTC Order to Delete Biased Algorithms in the Near Future?

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Continuing with my endeavor to further understand algorithmic bias, as well as learning about what is being done about it, I recently stumbled upon a fascinating article in Protocol that talked about how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had instructed the company WW International to delete all the illegally obtained private data and delete all algorithms derived from this data. The subject was intriguing, “a new standard for penalizing tech companies that violate privacy and use deceptive data practices: algorithmic destruction” (Kaye, 2022). Started looking further into the details by reading the FTC’s press release on the settlement resulting from a complaint filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on behalf of the FTC on WW International (formerly Weight Watchers). The FTC press release indicated that WW International collected personal information from children as young as eight without parental permission. The settlement instructed not only for the illegally collected data to b...
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An Insightful and Inspiring Tech Talk by Cathy O'Neil on Algorithmic Bias

As a Computer Science Major, I spend most of my days learning and perfecting the skill required to communicate with zeros and ones with fascinating non-sentient systems and embed logic into their memories, so they follow my commands. This sorcery is usually referred to as coding! Just like with magic, we can also program these systems to consume large quantities of data and spit back countless secrets hidden in it; or perhaps answer complex questions that would take us (humans) sometimes up to several lifetimes to compile. This magic is the result of algorithms defined in code. Well-designed code-embedded data-based decision-making logics had been the attainable holy grail for many organizations in recent times and some of us,  data sorcerers,  had been happily non-stop coding as many decisions in our lives as caffeine allows.   We often debate on the quality of the code and the algorithms, but rarely talk about the source data. Even more rarely do we discuss the quality...
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Relying On, but Not Trusting Algorithms to Prevent Bias

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     One critical aspect of understanding how to treat algorithms is to understand the nature of our relationship with them. Algorithmic logic is math at its core. Given the objective nature of math, we tend to associate its objectiveness and describe algorithms as objective as well. Nevertheless, algorithms are not objective by nature. Quite the opposite, they are opinions written in code, glued together with math. In other words, we cannot claim a slice of apple pie to be fresh and nutritious as fruit just because it was made with apples, no matter how hard some of us may wish it to fall into that category. Figure 1 . Computers vs Humans. (Source: xkcd.com, n.d.)      The result of this, sometimes unfortunate, instinct to define by association may build a false sense of trust in algorithms. These logics are great tools to guide us through processes, but we must be careful with concluding a relationship of trust from those interactions. As algorithms get m...
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