All posts tagged: Bias

UK report reveals bias within medical tools and devices | Health

UK report reveals bias within medical tools and devices | Health

Published by skeptic

Minority ethnic people, women and people from deprived communities are at risk of poorer healthcare because of biases within medical tools and devices, a report has revealed. Among other findings, the Equity in Medical Devices: Independent Review has raised concerns over devices that use artificial intelligence (AI), as well as those that measure oxygen levels. The team behind the review said urgent action was needed. Prof Frank Kee, the director of the centre for public health at Queen’s University Belfast and a co-author of the review, said: “We’d like an equity lens on the entire lifecycle of medical devices, from the initial testing, to recruitment of patients either in hospital or in the community, into the early phase studies and the implementation in the field after they are licensed,.” The junior health minister Andrew Stephenson said: “Making sure the healthcare system works for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, is paramount to our values as a nation. It supports our wider work to create a fairer and simpler NHS.” The government-commissioned review was set up by Sajid …

Physics explains why poured water burbles the way it does

Scientists Say: Confirmation Bias

Published by skeptic

Confirmation bias (noun, “Kahn-ferr-MAY-shun By-us”) Confirmation bias is our natural tendency to seek out and believe information that confirms what we already think — and ignore information that doesn’t. If a piece of information agrees with our beliefs, our instinct is to accept that it’s true. We’re often happy to learn this information. We tend to overlook any flaws in it. We’re more likely to recall it later. And we may be more likely to act on it. But when we’re given information that contradicts or complicates our views, the story is quite different. Our instinct is to feel defensive and to look for flaws in the information. We also tend to forget this information more quickly. And we may be less likely to act on it. Educators and Parents, Sign Up for The Cheat Sheet Weekly updates to help you use Science News Explores in the learning environment Thank you for signing up! There was a problem signing you up. Allowing confirmation bias to control how we process new information can be dangerous. For …

AI shows clear racial bias when used for job recruiting, new tests reveal

AI shows clear racial bias when used for job recruiting, new tests reveal

Published by skeptic

In a refrain that feels almost entirely too familiar by now: Generative AI is repeating the biases of its makers. A new investigation from Bloomberg found that OpenAI’s generative AI technology, specifically GPT 3.5, displayed preferences for certain racial in questions about hiring. The implication is that recruiting and human resources professionals who are increasingly incorporating generative AI based tools in their automatic hiring workflows — like LinkedIn’s new Gen AI assistant for example — may be promulgating racism. Again, sounds familiar. The publication used a common and fairly simple experiment of feeding fictitious names and resumes into AI recruiting softwares to see just how quickly the system displayed racial bias. Studies like these have been used for years to spot both human and algorithmic bias among professionals and recruiters. SEE ALSO: Reddit introduces an AI-powered tool that will detect online harassment “Reporters used voter and census data to derive names that are demographically distinct — meaning they are associated with Americans of a particular race or ethnicity at least 90 percent of the time …

LLMs exhibit significant Western cultural bias, study finds

LLMs exhibit significant Western cultural bias, study finds

Published by skeptic

Join leaders in Boston on March 27 for an exclusive night of networking, insights, and conversation. Request an invite here. A new study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology has found that large language models (LLMs) exhibit significant bias towards entities and concepts associated with Western culture, even when prompted in Arabic or trained solely on Arabic data. The findings, published on arXiv, raise concerns about the cultural fairness and appropriateness of these powerful AI systems as they are deployed globally. “We show that multilingual and Arabic monolingual [language models] exhibit bias towards entities associated with Western culture,” the researchers wrote in their paper titled, “Having Beer after Prayer? Measuring Cultural Bias in Large Language Models.” The study sheds light on the challenges LLMs face in grasping cultural nuances and adapting to specific cultural contexts, despite advancements in their multilingual capabilities. VB Event The AI Impact Tour – Boston We’re excited for the next stop on the AI Impact Tour in Boston on March 27th. This exclusive, invite-only event, in partnership with Microsoft, …

Still Don’t Think Media Bias Is Real?

Still Don’t Think Media Bias Is Real?

Published by skeptic

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com, “Super Tuesday,” when 15 states and one U.S. territory held presidential primaries, came and went this week with few (if any) surprises as Joe Biden won on the Democratic side, and Trump won the Republican primaries “bigly.” Nikki Haley has finally seen the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race. The only two primaries she won, and it tells you everything you need to know, were the Washington, D.C. swamp and the Socialist People’s Republic of Vermont. She’s an establishment candidate in the mold of Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney. The bottom line is the die is cast. Trump will be the Republican nominee, unless Democrat “lawfare” somehow succeeds in derailing him or something unforeseen happens. That outcome seems less likely after Monday’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling that prevents states from keeping him off the ballot. It’s been amazing to watch mainstream media outlets cover the Supreme Court ruling. Again, it was a 9-0 decision. But the Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the …

Bias against older people in health care settings is common and harmful : Shots

Bias against older people in health care settings is common and harmful : Shots

Published by skeptic

Dr. Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and author, speaks with a patient at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Health in San Francisco. /Julia Burns hide caption toggle caption /Julia Burns Dr. Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and author, speaks with a patient at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Health in San Francisco. /Julia Burns A recent study found that older people spend an average of 21 days a year on medical appointments. Kathleen Hayes can believe it. Hayes lives in Chicago and has spent a lot of time lately taking her parents, who are both in their 80s, to doctor’s appointments. Her dad has Parkinson’s, and her mom has had a difficult recovery from a bad bout of Covid-19. As she’s sat in, Hayes has noticed some health care workers talk to her parents at top volume, to the point, she says, “that my father said to one, ‘I’m not deaf, you don’t have to yell.’” In addition, while some doctors and nurses address her parents directly, others keep looking at Hayes herself. “Their gaze is on …

Bias hiding in plain sight: Decades of analyses suggest US media skews anti-Palestinian

Bias hiding in plain sight: Decades of analyses suggest US media skews anti-Palestinian

Published by skeptic

News organizations are often accused of lacking impartiality when covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In November 2023, over 750 journalists signed an open letter alleging bias in U.S. newsrooms against Palestinians in the reporting of the ongoing fighting in the Gaza strip. More recently, two articles in respected U.S. newspapers highlight the debate over bias. A Feb. 2, 2024, op-ed in The Wall Street Journal described a Michigan city, where many Arab immigrants live, as a center of antisemitic terrorism sympathizers. On the same day, another op-ed in The New York Times depicted the U.S. as a lion engaged in combat with Iran – characterized as a “parasitoid wasp” – and Hamas – portrayed as a “trap-door spider,” executing rapid, predatory maneuvers. The pieces were attacked by critics as being Islamaphobic and falling back on racist tropes. Broadcast media is similarly being scrutinized for bias. According to the Guardian, CNN has faced scrutiny for its alleged pro-Israel bias, with claims that Israeli official statements receive expedited clearance and trustful on-air portrayal. Conversely, statements from Palestinians, including …

BBC Question Time fans all say the same thing as panel sparks impartiality row | Politics | News

BBC Question Time fans all say the same thing as panel sparks impartiality row | Politics | News

Published by skeptic

The BBC has been slammed for political bias after Question Time failed to put up a single pro-Government spokesman to defend Rishi Sunak The flagship politics show hosted by Fiona Bruce saw Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi, Labour’s David Lammy, the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas and columnist Tim Stanley debate this week’s main topic of Lee Anderson and Islamophobia, another other news items. However Baroness Warsi, David Cameron’s former party chairwoman, is a notable Government critic and blasted Tory MPs as either “dim” or “divisive” for refusing to accuse Mr Anderson of anti-Muslim remarks. Mr Stanley, while not on the government payroll, tried to provide a fairer defence of the Government’s reluctance to close down free speech and free debate over the ‘Islamophobia’ row, however an official pro-Lee Anderson voice was notably lacking. The panel selection has sparked accusations of political bias by the BBC on social media, with viewers blasting the left-wing line-up. One Twitter user fumed: “Jesus wept…What a line up this is tonight”. “Only missing Jeremy Corbyn and Dale Vince to make it …

Alito argues that religious bias is better than any other kind

Alito argues that religious bias is better than any other kind

Published by Sam

(RNS) — A couple of weeks ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito became wrought up about possible religious discrimination in a case involving a lesbian who successfully sued the Missouri Department of Corrections for discriminating against her because of her sexual orientation. What upset Alito was the fact that the trial judge had dismissed a couple of jurors on the grounds that their religious beliefs about homosexuality rendered their impartiality suspect. During the phase of jury selection known as voir dire, the plaintiff’s counsel asked jurors, “How many of you went to a religious organization growing up where it was taught that people that are homosexuals shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else because it was a sin with what they did?” A few said they had, and the court excused two for maintaining the belief that homosexual behavior is a sin, despite their claiming they could be impartial.  “Any defense lawyer in a criminal case or a lawyer in a civil case would be committing malpractice if they failed to object,” said …

Anti-women bias in job application outcomes has declined over time, but anti-male bias remains stable

Anti-women bias in job application outcomes has declined over time, but anti-male bias remains stable

Published by José

A recent comprehensive study sheds light on the trajectory of gender discrimination in job applications over the last 44 years. The findings reveal that while discrimination against women in traditionally male-dominated jobs has seen a significant decrease, biases against men applying for roles typically viewed as female-dominated persist stubbornly. Furthermore, both laypeople and academics appear to overestimate the current extent of discrimination against female applicants, indicating a gap between societal perceptions and the realities of gender bias in the workplace. The new findings were published in the scientific journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. “Recently, the literature on gender discrimination has started to produce divergent results, some studies showing continued discrimination, some showing improvement in discrimination, and some studies even showing reverse discrimination. Thus, we were curious what the situation looks like if you looked at the cumulative evidence over time,” said study author Michael Schaerer, an associate professor of organizational behavior and human resources at Singapore Management University. Methodology At the heart of the research was a pre-registered meta-analysis, a statistical technique used …