Man vs Machine: Will AI put our humanity at stake?

The vision of an all-knowing, omnipresent intelligent being that forms the backbone of our everyday lives has been portrayed in movies. These movies captivate the imagination of many. Today, that vision is not too far from reality. We are seeing this at work through artificial intelligence (AI) – from AI-powered voice assistants like Alexa to helping solve traffic issues, enabling the sequencing of DNA, tackling business problems, and transforming industries such as tech, healthcare, logistics, and fintech.

Current AI technologies are estimated to have the potential to automate about 50 percent of work activities in ASEAN’s four biggest economies – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, according to McKinsey.

Even as AI increasingly finds its way into our everyday lives, the transformative power of AI is underpinned by a deeper issue. This issue threatens the very fabric of our society – the presence of bias within it.

Uncovering the roots of bias

Much of AI’s capabilities as an intelligent, cognitive system rely on it being programmed and trained. At its core, AI operates on algorithms and data sets, which are the driving force of the digital economy in the 21st century. However, AI also unfortunately inherits and reflects the existing bias of its creators through the data it is given.

For example, when used in recruitment, a biased AI could be trained to shortlist potential candidates based on profiles of high-performing employees. These profiles may not be representative of the company’s workforce. They may not consider diversity and inclusion as factors for hiring, potentially skewing the hiring demographic.

The capabilities of AI are only as objective as the quality of the data inputs. Additionally, the assumptions around the data also play a role. When this data is not carefully selected, AI may not only validate the biases we hold...Leaving this unaddressed could pose issues for society. AI has already found its way into sectors such as telecommunications, medical, legal, and finance. For example, a biased AI system might deny a bank loan simply because the borrower is located in a poorer neighborhood.The possible scenarios are endless, though the conclusion is resoundingly clear. Bias in AI needs to be swiftly addressed while AI is still at its teething stages. This must be done before it progresses too far to root out issues that lie at conception.Part of the reason behind the existence of bias in AI points to the lack of diversity, particularly of gender, in the tech industry. Even more so for a highly specialized field like AI, it has been found that