June 04, 2018
Algorithms aren’t just deciding the content of social media feeds and online advertising anymore. To guard against bias creep and streamline decisions about the allocation of resources, many urban areas across the country are turning to these automated decision systems. But how do we ensure that the algorithms are the impartial arbiters we expect them to be? Drexel University professor Julia Stoyanovich is part of the first group in the nation helping to answer this question in the biggest urban area in the world. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped Stoyanovich to serve on the city’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force, a team charged with creating a process for reviewing algorithms through the lens of fairness, equity and accountability.
