A fired tear gas at protesters trying to get into baghdads fortified green zone which houses government buildings the demonstrations against corruption and unemployment 1st began a year ago hundreds of people have been killed since then. France has registered a new record of daily infections with more than 52000. 00 confirmed on sunday several other European Countries including italy and spain are imposing stricter measures as infections. U. S. President mike pence is back on the campaign trail despite an outbreak of coronavirus cases within his inner circle his chief of staff is one of at least 5 people who tested positive was put into. A cease fire deal between azerbaijan and armenia is set to start in around half an hour to previous agreements aimed at stopping the fighting over there gonna cut about collapsed it comes off the heavy fighting in the disputed region on sunday camerons blaming a massacre on school at the school on separatist groups witnesses say the attackers use guns machetes on victims that happened in the city of kumba in an English Speaking region at least 8 children were killed and several others wounded 2 and a phone provinces have become a center of conflict as groups fight for independence they keep the predominantly french government marginalizing them 7 suspects have been detained after a suspected hijacking of a tanker in the English Channel u. K. Special forces boarded the liberian registered vessel off for its cute reported stowaways it was on its way to nigeria from an oil refinery in the u. K. Those are the headlines. The news continues on all hail the algorithm. On counting the costs for the Biden Victory means china has the democrats lined up a multibillion dollar plan to confront beijing and president shes project to rival Silicon Valley plus how African Business is coping with the pandemic counting the cost. Examining the impact of todays headlines the escape from just a mistake but we dont feel safe with you setting the agenda for tomorrows discussions my blackberry my will as this my old bean has been weaponized International Film makers the moon cars journalists tell us how and why the textile and fashion industry is a major polluters bring programs to inform and inspire new. Jersey and. Trust is fundamental to all our relationships not just with our family and friends we trust banks with our money we trust doctors without really personal information. But what happens to trust in a world driven by algorithms as more and more decisions are made for us by these complex pieces of code the question that comes up is inevitable can we trust algorithms. From google searches to g. P. S. Navigation algorithms are everywhere we dont really think too much about them but increasingly governments corporations and various institutions are using them to make decisions about us who gets Public Services who gets to nod how people are monitored and policed how insurance is challenged. I want to start here in australia where an algorithm used by the government has resulted in more than 400000 people being in debt to the countrys welfare system essentially its being called the road at scandal. Back in 2016 a decision was made to fully automate a key part of the astrology and welfare system the part where the earnings of low income people are compared with the amount of government money they received the government says they do this to ensure the right amount of Financial Assistance has been that all the data matching algorithm officially called the on line compliance intervention had been in place since 2011 any discrepancies previously flagged by the system were investigated by a Government Employee 1st with automation all human checks were removed the government had instituted an algorithm that essentially said lets match train lots of data together and mash them to get. And see if people have a dead cert some of the math was just bad just plain wrong like it was spread shapes that mashing the cells together in the cells to chop actual is a generalist who has been reporting on the road that story since it broke shes also an activist one of the chief organizes of the not why did ross Roots Campaign often people didnt realize that this was all automated in the 1st place and it wasnt until we started getting people talking together on social media on twitter that we realized actually its the government has found it was almost like 100000. 00 people had been gaslighted into thinking they had done the wrong thing that it was their fault and their outrage when they realized that there was a fault in the actual algorithm in the car and the Australian Government disagrees we are doing. What. We are. And we are recruiting money for. More chicks is a bit of an understatement the old system resulted in around 20000 descript c notices a year but in the early days of the new Automated System that jumped 220008 week. More than a 1000000 letters had been sent out by the algorithm sometimes disputing government payments from this fall back a city and what was even worse was the systems were imposed on paper with intellectual disabilities with homelessness with. Is Chronic Health issues people who you know were barely literate or not literate all people who didnt know how to use a Computer People who were living in remote communities without access to internet people who just had no bloody clue how to deal with this sort of administrative bureaucratic bumble. David begnaud was notified he correctly declared his income from a teaching job while he was on a disability pension back in 2011. d 4088. 00 innocence rather disease its weathering an accusation toward you that youve somehow done the wrong thing unknowing head on want to details here i dont want it and i was told i couldnt have that and the reason was that the computer posting information and then sources a piece of information another person here another person in the business and they cant provide all that to me because it comes in too many places and it was simply put in other words the older or the ms inscrutable its totally normal even the start dont really understand it broken can you tell me how much evidence or how much notification to send only provide you proving that there was a day when you mean anything other than this mention of a thing that i have finally text mr right. To say hi the money you our us is doing today. The fact that you couldnt get any concrete evidence about this is how we have calculated your days here is what you hear the hours you work. That really i found. It sure any confidence that i had in the government will do the right thing the fact that i couldnt prove to me that i owed the money. Really concerned me so i never find that youre saying the letter in the mail thats generated by an ai that essentially says the government wants to let you know that we underpay jews by 5000. 00 or that you should have been eligible for the services that we didnt tell you death for were telling you now and we can back pay and nobody gets back to hide in fact youre only eligible for like back pay i think its 6 weeks government service. But the government can robo dating back for many many is automation computerized ation algorithm or ties ation if thats even a word theyre always sold to us as such a positive thing all upside no downside as a stroll is department of Human Services put it computerized Decision Making can reduce red tape ensure decisions are consistent and create greater efficiencies for recipients and the department the problem is how the challenge a system that has no facts no name and no besides the bottom of your letter say you know im in charge of this. Good afternoon welcome to the department of Human Services sense like on a good day heated up sitting on hold for a couple hours to speak to a human the real question is how does it come about that the government has either pay people but billions. Because really. The criminal waste is occurring at the end of the governments line its the government thats doing this otherwise youre saying 100000. 00 citizens have made mistakes or if thats the case then the system is too difficult for people to negotiate so im not here shaking my fist at technology its not digitals fall its not computers fault this system has been designed you know quite explicitly you know by government governments responsible for its failures and governments are really responsible for the hell theyre putting all sorts of welfare recipients through unfairly by issuing them for. This is something i heard from virtually everyone i spoke to about wrote it they said were not against technology its not like algorithms are all bad its the people and the institutions designing these codes we cant seem to trust and this really gets to the heart of our relationship with algorithms there are often complex hidden behind walls of secrecy with no way for those whose lives are actually impacted by them to probe them because theyve been kept off limits. Despite all the criticism and even a formal inquiry is trolling government stands by its algorithm and automation in the welfare system. We do have compliance i mean. We pick out 300000000. 00. Through that. Work and we will continue with. There are at least 20 different laws in australia that explicitly enable algorithms to make decisions previously made by ministers will start we dont really know the full extent of how these are being applied but there are places around the world where the use of algorithms are even more widespread. Like here in the United States where algorithms are being used to make Big Decisions across everything from the criminal Justice SystemHealth Education and employment. And the United States has a longer history of algorithm use than many other countries Silicon Valley is a big reason for that of course but also theres much looser regulation here on how private companies and governments can collect and use data before theyre studying the effects of algorithms on American Society one thing is clear often its poor marginalized to get the word steal. My money my way now prochoice in new york state to me weve been ginning you think shes the authority on everything to do with the board of mating inequality actually the title of one of the books the genius says americas poor and working class have long been subject to invasive surveillance and punitive policies she writes about prison like poor houses of the 19th century the bad conditions with thought to discourage undeserving poor from supposedly taking advantage of the system. What i see as being part of the digital poorhouse are things like automated Decision Making tools statistical models that make risk predictions about how people are going to behave in the future or algorithms that match people to resources and the reason i think of them as a digital poor house is because that the decision that we made in 820 to build actual poorhouses was a decision that Public Service systems should 1st and foremost be moral thermometers that they should act to decide who is most deserving of receiving their basic human rights the genius studies into the automation of Public Services in the United States points to developments in the late sixtys and seventys along with the Civil Rights Movement came a push for welfare rights people are forced to live in the most inhuman situations because of poverty africanamericans and unmarried women who were previously bought from receiving public funds could now demand state support when they need to do. Well technology was touted as a way to distribute Financial Aid more efficiently in almost immediately began to serve as a tool to limit the number of people getting support so you have this moment in history where theres a recession and a backlash against social spending and social movement thats winning successes that and discriminatory treatment and there really is no way to close the roles they cant close the roles the way they had in the past which is just to discriminate against people and thats the moment we see these tools start to be integrated into public assistance i think its really important to understand that history i think too often we think of the systems us just simple administrative upgrades sort of natural and inevitable but in fact there are systems that make really important conflict. Political decisions for us and they were from the beginning supposed to solve political problems among them. The power and the solidarity of poor working people in the only 970 s. Close to 50 percent of those living below the poverty line in the United States receive some form of cash welfare from the government today its less than 10 percent in public assistance the assumption of many folks who have not had direct experience with these systems is that theyre set up to help you succeed they are not in fact set up to say help you succeed and theyre very complicated systems that are very diversionary that are needlessly complex and that are incredibly stigmatizing and emotionally very difficult so it shouldnt then surprise us that a tool that makes that system faster. More efficient and more Cost Effective furthers that purpose of diverting people from the resources that they that they need having algorithms make decisions such as who gets Financial Aid who owes money back to the government has caused concern among many different groups but whats causing a full on panic for some is the fact that algorithms are being used to actually make predictions about people one of the most controversial examples is the correctional offender management profiling for alternative sanctions its a bit of a mouthful but it sure is compass and its an algorithm thats been used in courtrooms across the country to assist judges during sentencing now of course algorithms caught way up arguments analyze evidence or assess remorse but what they are be used for is to produce something known as a Risk Assessment school to predict the likelihood of a defendant committing another crime in the future this school is then used by judges to help determine who should be released and who should be detained pending trial. Now the judge has to consider a couple factors here theres Public Safety and flight risk on the one hand but then there are the real costs social and financial of the tension on the defendant on their family on the other now historically what happens is the judge looks into this defendants eyes and tries to say ok youre a high risk person or youre a low risk person i trust your i dont trust you now what algorithms are helping us to do is make those decisions better the compass algorithm was brought in to offset balance out inconsistency is in human judgment the assumption being of course that a piece of code would always be less biased and less susceptible to prejudice however compass is faced several criticisms primarily accusations of racial bias inaccuracy and lack of transparency in 2016 a man named eric loomis sentenced to 6 years in prison took his case to the wood sconce and state Supreme Court his allegation was that the use of compass violated his right to due process it made it impossible for him to appeal his sentence since the algorithm is a black box impenetrable unquestionable. Eric loomis didnt get very far the Supreme Court ruled the use of compass in his sentencing was legal the verdict tell about revealed the ways in which the ever increasing use of algorithms is being normalized the court had a funny argument saying that nobody knows where these decisions are coming from and so its its ok you know its not that the state has a particular advantage over the defendant but that everyone is at this sort of an equal Playing Field and its not that theres an informational advantage for one side or the other to me i find that somewhat dissatisfied and i do think that in these high stakes decisions particular in the criminal Justice System we dont just want to have an equal Playing Field no one knows but i think we need to have an equal Playing FieldEverybody Knows we need to have this transparency built a system for the record equivalent the company that sells Compass Software has defended its algorithm it points to Research Commissions that the Company Meets industry standards for fantasy and accuracy. What a compass most of the privately developed algorithms meet acceptable standards for transparency is another question even when they are used in the provision of Public Services algorithms are often closed to the public they cannot be scrutinized regardless of that sharon says that in certain cases he would still be comfortable being judged by a group bust algorithm so i do think its true that many of the people in the criminal Justice System are the most disadvantaged and the reality is they probably dont have a lot of say in their futures in their fates and how these algorithms are going to evaluate them. And whether this would happen if more powerful people are being judged by these algorithms i dont know now me personally i would rather be judged by a well designed algorithm and a human in part because i believe the statistical. Methods for something risky in fact are better than human