California Assembly bill aims to minimize discriminatory decisions by AI systems used by state
Ed Chau and Debra Gore-Mann
April 17, 2021
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State Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys (left), and Assembly Member Ed Chau, D-Monterey Park (Los Angeles County), celebrate after their data privacy bill was approved by the Legislature in 2018.Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press 2018
You can’t see algorithms, but they can impact huge parts of your life, from seemingly minor things like what video YouTube will queue up next to life-and-death issues such as whether or not you can get a COVID-19 vaccination. It’s time we had a better idea of algorithms’ impact, particularly when the government is using them.
Debra Gore-Mann, Special to CalMatters
Debra Gore-Mann is president and CEO of
, debra.goremann@greenlining.org. The Greenlining Institute is sponsoring Assembly Bill 13.
You can’t see algorithms, but they can impact huge parts of your life, from seemingly minor things like what video YouTube will queue up next to life-and-death issues such as whether or not you can get a COVID-19 vaccination. It’s time we all had a better idea how algorithms impact us, particularly when the government is using them.
An algorithm is simply a set of rules and instructions used by a computer program to perform a task or solve a problem. While algorithms themselves are coldly mathematical, they are created by humans who, like all of us, can have blind spots, biases or preconceptions. And that can lead to algorithms that make bad decisions or even perpetuate racial and gender bias.