News and Research articles on Machine learning

Identifying potential emerging human rights implications in Chinese smart cities via machine-learning aided patent analysis

Joss Wright, University of Oxford
Valentin Weber, German Council on Foreign Relations
Gregory Finn Walton, SecDev Group
PUBLISHED ON: 28 Jul 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.3.1718

We focus on using patent data, with machine learning methods, in the context of China, for the purpose of tracking the pace of development of potentially human rights sensitive smart city technologies.

This paper introduces a socio-technical typology of bias in data-driven machine learning and artificial intelligence systems. It argues that a clear distinction must be made between different concepts of bias in such systems in order to analytically assess and politically critique these systems. By analysing the controversial Austrian “AMS algorithm” as a case study among other examples, this paper defines the following three types of bias: purely technical, socio-technical, and societal.