When AI Misjudgment Is Not an Accident


Douglas Yeung at Scientific American: “The conversation about unconscious bias in artificial intelligence often focuses on algorithms that unintentionally cause disproportionate harm to entire swaths of society—those that wrongly predict black defendants will commit future crimes, for example, or facial-recognition technologies developed mainly by using photos of white men that do a poor job of identifying women and people with darker skin.

But the problem could run much deeper than that. Society should be on guard for another twist: the possibility that nefarious actors could seek to attack artificial intelligence systems by deliberately introducing bias into them, smuggled inside the data that helps those systems learn. This could introduce a worrisome new dimension to cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns or the proliferation of fake news.

According to a U.S. government study on big data and privacy, biased algorithms could make it easier to mask discriminatory lending, hiring or other unsavory business practices. Algorithms could be designed to take advantage of seemingly innocuous factors that can be discriminatory. Employing existing techniques, but with biased data or algorithms, could make it easier to hide nefarious intent. Commercial data brokers collect and hold onto all kinds of information, such as online browsing or shopping habits, that could be used in this way.

Biased data could also serve as bait. Corporations could release biased data with the hope competitors would use it to train artificial intelligence algorithms, causing competitors to diminish the quality of their own products and consumer confidence in them.

Algorithmic bias attacks could also be used to more easily advance ideological agendas. If hate groups or political advocacy organizations want to target or exclude people on the basis of race, gender, religion or other characteristics, biased algorithms could give them either the justification or more advanced means to directly do so. Biased data also could come into play in redistricting efforts that entrench racial segregation (“redlining”) or restrict voting rights.

Finally, national security threats from foreign actors could use deliberate bias attacks to destabilize societies by undermining government legitimacy or sharpening public polarization. This would fit naturally with tactics that reportedly seek to exploit ideological divides by creating social media posts and buying online ads designed to inflame racial tensions….(More)”.