TL;DR

In this article, we'll define AI bias and evaluate its impact on both business operations and society. We'll cover: 

• The different types and sources of AI bias
• How AI bias harms individuals and organisations (discrimination, regulatory violations, reputational damage)
• How to mitigate AI bias (detection and measurement methods, preprocessing techniques, algorithmic adjustments, model evaluation) 
• Best practices for reducing AI bias (inclusive data collection, regular audits and reviews, stakeholder involvement)
• The most common challenges behind AI bias and how to overcome them

Finally, we'll give some thoughts on how organisations can ethically leverage AI to optimise their business practices while keeping AI bias to a minimum.

What is AI Bias?

To understand how biases creep into AI systems, you first need to grasp how AI makes its decisions. AI is powered by advanced algorithms and machine learning models which mimic the human brain in its learning behaviours. AI works by inputting massive datasets into those algorithms, enabling the technology to make inferences, draw conclusions and predict future trends, all to help organisations optimise their operations.

When those datasets are skewed, incomplete, or reflect pre-existing assumptions or stereotypes engrained within our society, the outputs generated by AI become skewed as well. The result is faulty inferences, inaccurate predictions and even the perpetuation of the very stereotypes our society is seeking to overcome. 

As an example, consider an AI automation product that helps recruiters sort through resumes faster. When working correctly, the software should help recruiters find candidates with the right skillsets to meet the necessary job requirements. However, if the algorithms are trained based on datasets that fail to exclude gender from their considerations, then the software may wrongly take gender into account as it sifts through applicants. 

The result is that underrepresented genders could be excluded from positions that are typically dominated by one gender or another. Similar examples hold for race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and other factors, with the end outcome being the same: biased inputs create biased algorithms, which perpetuate a biased society.

Understanding AI Bias

The scope of AI bias is much broader than training algorithms with incomplete or skewed datasets. In addition to datasets and algorithms, another source of AI bias can be data collection and labelling methods. Biases can even be found in the way machine learning models are designed. 

Definition and Types

There are two main categories of AI bias, with each taking multiple forms. If organisations hope to eliminate bias from their AI operations, they must familiarise themselves with the types of AI bias that can occur, and attack them from every angle. The two main types of AI bias are:

Data bias: AI makes its predictions according to the datasets on which it was trained. When these datasets are skewed, algorithmic outputs are too. 

Some examples of data bias include:

• Incomplete data: Data that fails to tell the whole story.
• Obsolete data: Data that's too old to reflect current trends.
• Disproportionately represented data: Data that examines some demographics more than others.

Algorithmic bias: Sometimes it's not the datasets that are skewed, but the algorithms themselves. When the very source code of these advanced learning models has certain assumptions or stereotypes baked in, the outputs will be biased whether the datasets are or not.

Some examples of algorithmic bias include:

• Pre-processing bias: When some data cleaning methods are biased.
• Confirmation bias: When AI systems are designed to confirm pre-existing beliefs.
• Model bias: Disproportionately favouring certain outcomes or groups.

With the potential for machine learning bias lying within every phase of the AI development cycle, organisations must implement comprehensive processes for detecting and eliminating it. 

Sources of Bias

To mitigate AI bias, organisations must identify where it will occur in their processes. The main sources of AI bias are:

• Data collection: An especially common source of data bias, poor data collection practices may only capture information from certain demographics, underrepresenting or completely excluding entire populations.
• Labelling: Datasets must be cleaned and labelled after collection, and incorrect or improper labelling can result in a bias. For example, datasets for job applicants within a certain field should be labelled to mask irrelevant factors such as gender, sexual orientation, or race.
• Model design: More common to algorithmic bias, some AI models are written in such a way as to give disproportionate weight to some data points over others. 

In addition to datasets that lack context, currency and completeness, some bias may be based on the biases of the developers themselves. Due to their personal perspectives or life experiences, AI developers may — deliberately or unintentionally — create algorithms that take unnecessary or even harmful factors into consideration or neglect necessary parameters. This is another reason that diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DEI) efforts are so crucial, as development teams with greater diversity are consistently better at reducing their own bias by bringing multiple perspectives to their teams.

The Impact of AI Bias

Our tech-driven world relies heavily on digital systems, so when bias in AI occurs, it can greatly impact both individuals and organisations. Here are some of the most common ways that AI bias can damage your operations.

Fairness and Discrimination

AI bias can perpetuate social inequalities and hinder the progress that our world has made towards overcoming them. Some cases of AI bias have already been found in sectors ranging from healthcare and legal to education and manufacturing. Here are a few of the most prevalent examples of bias in AI systems:

• A healthcare algorithm used to predict the need for extra care for certain demographics used cost of care as a metric to determine the need for treatment. However, because Black populations have less access to care and therefore spend less money on healthcare, the number of Black patients identified by the algorithm as needing extra care was less than half of White populations. 
• The Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) algorithm is used by legal systems nationwide to predict the likelihood of recidivism or the likelihood of a repeated offence. Its outputs predicted recidivist occurrences for Black offenders more than twice as often as that of White offenders.
• In 2015, Amazon's hiring algorithms were trained by the applications they had received over the last 10 years — most of which were from men. The result was that female applicants were automatically disqualified, even if they possessed the necessary qualifications for the job. 

While the capabilities of AI have certainly matured since some of the most infamous AI discrimination examples, AI bias can still be the source of social inequality and oppression when it arises — and it can be introduced into systems all too easily. 

Regulatory and Legal Risks

The social inequity that AI bias creates can have damaging regulatory and legal consequences as well. Organisations not only expose themselves to the risk of lawsuits when their algorithms discriminate against qualified candidates, but some acts of discrimination may even result in costly compliance fines. 

For example, some AI tools used to determine loan eligibility in the financial sector have discriminated against minorities by rejecting loan and credit card applications. They've done so by taking irrelevant parameters into their calculations, such as the applicant's race or the neighbourhoods where they live. 

Despite these violations, some cases of AI discrimination have been difficult to prove in court, as it can often be hard to pinpoint how an algorithm generated its findings. This is why transparency in AI development is a must. 

Business and Reputation Risks

When AI bias arises, the bottom line often suffers. Today's buyers are displaying a heightened concern over corporate ethics, with a 2022 Harris Poll survey showing that 82% of consumers want the companies they buy from to align with their values — and 75% will switch brands if they don't. Companies with discriminatory AI practices are therefore more likely to tarnish their brand and lose business from customers who oppose their unethical practices.

Techniques for Mitigating AI Bias

Despite the ease with which it infiltrates AI models, multiple techniques exist that can help reduce or eliminate AI bias. Some of them are:

Bias Detection and Measurement: Before eliminating bias in AI, you have to detect where it exists and measure its severity in the system. AI teams can search for bias manually or automatically, or use a hybrid of the two, and can use several metrics to measure it.

These metrics include:

• Accuracy: How closely a data sample represents the true value of the data.
• Completeness: Whether the dataset captures a sufficiently large portion of the population it represents.
• Fairness: How much a given parameter favours one population subset over another.

Data Preprocessing Techniques: Bias often creeps in during the preprocessing phase, so teams should take special care to root it out at this layer in the AI development cycle.

Some data preprocessing methods are:

• Data balancing: Ensuring that a dataset is representative of the real-world population it's designed to capture. Some tactics to balance data include undersampling, oversampling, or synthetic sampling.
• Augmentation: Creating new data from old datasets to better train the model.
• Cleaning: Removing errors and outliers from the dataset.

Algorithmic Adjustments: Algorithmic bias may require that the model itself be adjusted, sometimes at the level of the very source code.

Some algorithmic adjustment methods include:

• Fairness constraints: Conditions which are imposed upon an algorithm to remove unwanted behaviour.
• Reweighting: Assigning different weights to parameters before computation to remove inaccuracies and create more balanced predictions. 
• Adversarial de-biasing: An in-process technique where the model learns a classifier to simultaneously improve accuracy and reduce incorrect outcomes.

Once an AI tool's algorithms have been modified, they must be repeatedly tested and validated to ensure that all bias has been removed. Data lineage is also a particularly helpful tool in reducing AI bias, as it helps track the motion of data throughout an organisation's digital pipeline. This enhances transparency and enables teams to more easily identify where bias gets introduced.

Best Practices for Mitigating AI Bias

Organisations must be diligent in implementing as many best practices as possible if they hope to eliminate AI bias. Some best practices to follow are:

• Diverse and Inclusive Data Collection: AI bias often gets introduced in the collection phase. If teams gather their data from a wide range of sources and make a point of including all demographics, they can remove a large population of their AI bias before it ever reaches the model.
• Regular Audits and Reviews: Both data and social trends can change over time, so organisations must consistently audit and review their AI tools to ensure that their datasets and algorithms remain bias-free.
• Stakeholder Involvement: More diverse development teams bring multiple perspectives to the table and can better cross-examine the biases inherent to each stakeholder. DEI is essential for eliminating AI biases, so stakeholders across every vertical and walk of life must be included to ensure an equitable AI economy for all. 

Because data lineage is such a valuable tool in removing AI bias, another best practice is to invest in a comprehensive, intuitive data lineage tool that can help track your data's journey. 

Challenges in Mitigating AI Bias: Obstacles and Solutions

Despite these best practices, multiple challenges still exist in removing AI bias completely. These hurdles can be cleared by implementing best practices and proactively seeking to remove AI bias wherever it may be found.

Some of the most common AI bias challenges and solutions are:

Fairness vs. Performance: The more equitable an AI model is toward the datasets it's studying, the fewer predictions it's able to make. Organisations must balance the trade-off between performance and fairness, deciding how much they wish to limit their AI tools for the sake of reducing any bias.

Solution: Organisations should remember the business damage that AI bias can do and should prioritise fairness over performance when possible. They should also consult with AI experts to identify areas where their algorithms can be tweaked to reduce AI bias.

Lack of transparency: AI bias can be particularly difficult to root out because it's often difficult to tell how an algorithm arrived at its conclusions.

Solution: Data lineage tools are instrumental in elevating AI transparency, so organisations should leverage them to track the history of their data so that they can identify and remove all AI bias. 

Digital opacity and the trade-off between fairness and performance are two key challenges to removing AI bias, but they can be overcome first by prioritizing non-biased, transparent AI development, and then by using the tools needed to give clear insights into how an AI model functions. By doing that, they can overcome their most pressing AI bias challenges.

Final Thoughts

AI bias can exacerbate social inequity, violate legal requirements, and tarnish brand trust, all of which can damage profitability and hinder a business' operations. That makes AI bias one of the biggest risks for businesses using or building AI models, but there are several techniques and best practices that companies can use to mitigate it. 

Ultimately, the quality of the model outputs will always be decided by the diversity and quality of the datasets the model is trained on, so organisations must not only gather the most comprehensive data available but must take proactive steps to root out bias at every level.

FAQ

How can facial recognition software exacerbate racial bias in AI systems?

Facial recognition software often suffers from racial bias due to unrepresentative data and systemic bias in its training algorithms. If the data primarily includes images of individuals from specific racial groups, the software may perform less accurately on faces from underrepresented groups. This can lead to higher error rates, such as incorrect identifications or failure to recognise individuals accurately, perpetuating discrimination and social inequities.

What steps can organisations take to test for bias in AI models effectively?

To effectively test for bias, organisations can implement a series of checks throughout the AI model's development and deployment. These include bias audits, where external experts assess the model's decision-making processes, implementing continuous monitoring systems to track performance across different demographics and using validation datasets that are specifically designed to uncover hidden biases. This proactive approach helps ensure fairness and accuracy in AI applications.

How does the use of unrepresentative data in machine learning algorithms contribute to bias, and what can be done to address this issue?

Unrepresentative data in machine learning algorithms can lead to bias by not accurately reflecting the diversity of the population that the AI system serves. When certain groups are underrepresented in the training data, the algorithm may not perform effectively for those groups, leading to unfair or inaccurate outcomes. To address this issue, organisations can implement more inclusive data collection practices, ensuring that datasets encompass a wide range of demographics. Additionally, techniques such as synthetic data generation or data augmentation can be employed to enhance the representativeness of the training data, improving the AI model's fairness and accuracy across diverse groups.

In what ways does systemic bias influence AI tools, and how can it be mitigated?

Systemic bias in AI tools arises from deep-seated inequalities in the data collection, algorithm design and implementation processes that reflect broader societal biases. To mitigate this, organisations should diversify their development teams, involve multiple stakeholders to identify and address potential biases and employ debiasing techniques like adversarial de-biasing during the model training phase to reduce the impact of these biases.

What is the significance of algorithmic adjustments in reducing bias in AI and what methods are most effective?

Algorithmic adjustments are crucial for reducing bias by modifying the underlying mechanics of AI models to ensure fairer outcomes. Effective methods include incorporating fairness constraints that explicitly limit the algorithm's ability to make biased predictions, reweighting training data to balance underrepresented groups and using techniques like adversarial debiasing to challenge and correct the model during training. These adjustments help create more equitable and transparent AI systems.

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