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The Equality Machine

Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future

Orly Lobel

Public Affairs, 2022

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Society has become polarized between those who fear new technologies due to their potential to exacerbate existing inequities and those who naively envision a technological utopia without anticipating risks. Law professor Orly Lobel urges humanity to bridge these divides, working together to create an “equality machine” instead. Lobel calls on stakeholders across sectors to harness the power of AI, machine learning, and big data to reduce inequities, bias, and discrimination. Learn about efforts around the world to create a better future in which humanity uses “technology for good.”

Summary

The emergence of intelligent machines triggers a need to uphold values of equity and fairness.

Over the past decade, discourse about technological change has been largely polarized. Silicon Valley “insiders” — predominantly white men — have viewed “disruption” as their key objective, lauding the potential of new technologies to drive economic growth and create efficiencies. Meanwhile, “outsiders” — such as people of color, women, and those from rural areas and the developing world — have issued warning cries about potential new forms of exclusion and inequities. Thus, two dichotomous visions of the future have emerged: Outsiders worry that new technology will create a dystopian “robopocalypse,” while insiders dream of an innovation utopia.

Humanity must take a middle path between naive optimism and fearful pessimism: cultivating awareness of the ways new technologies can perpetuate inequities while simultaneously taking action to improve the fairness of technological systems. Some have tried to improve machine fairness by removing identity markers, like ...

About the Author

Orly Lobel is the director of the Center for Employment and Labor Policy and the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego as well as a tech policy consultant to leading organizations. She is the award-winning author of several books and numerous research articles.

The Equality Machine

Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future

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The emergence of intelligent machines triggers a need to uphold values of equity and fairness.

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