Machine learning is being used to see if it’s possible to predict whether someone will commit a crime some time in the future. But does this risk condemning people for a crime they haven’t committed?
New research shines light on whether creating such a haven as a new type of exchange that slows trading down a bit could attract enough traders to be effective.
Data-driven algorithms drive decision-making in ways that touch our economic, social and civic lives. But they contain inherent biases and assumptions that are too often invisible to the public.
If smart cities run on big data and algorithms that channel only ‘relevant’ information and opinions to us, how do we maintain the diversity of ideas and possibilities that drives truly smart cities?
Math isn’t prejudiced, goes the argument. But these arithmetic programs can learn bias from the data fed into them by human beings, leading to unfair treatment and discrimination.
Facebook’s recent apology for its Year in Review feature, which had displayed to a grieving father images of his dead daughter, highlights again the tricky relationship between the social media behemoth…
The world is certainly not short of pundits claiming to have a grasp on where the economy is heading or what the future holds for Ukraine. But history reminds us how poor humans are at making predictions…
Take a set of chess pieces and throw them all away except for one knight. Place the knight on any one of the 64 squares of a chess board. Can you make 63 legal moves so that you visit every square on the…
Intelligence is a very difficult concept and, until recently, no one has succeeded in giving it a satisfactory formal definition. Most researchers have given up grappling with the notion of intelligence…
The scene was typical for an international gathering of governments: bureaucrats, sat behind nameplates and speaking through interpreters. But the less than typical result of the votes cast at this 1992…
The deluge of data we are subjected to daily can be a good thing sometimes. It gives us a wide-open window to look at people’s behaviour, say, through their use of social media. The obvious question then…
I once made the mistake of asking a mathematician why he devoted his whole life to maths. “Because it’s fun!” he replied wildly, his flabby cheeks beaming with childlike excitement. “Ah, of course,” I…