"Algorithms are not inherently fair, because the person who builds the model defines success," she said. - In the world of finance, brokers "scrape" data from online and other sources in new ways to make decisions on credit or insurance. Her findings were echoed in a White House report last year warning that algorithmic systems "are not infallible — they rely on the imperfect inputs, logic, probability, and people who design them." The report noted that data systems can ideally help weed out human bias but warned against algorithms "systematically disadvantaging certain groups." This would "either force transparency or it will stop algorithms from being used in certain contexts," he said.

Source: Daily Nation February 12, 2017 13:34 UTC