Fighting “Everyday Bias” : Thoughtfulness in information access

RISE is the Innovation Champion of LeadCyprus, whose mission is to connect and engage the ecosystem of professionals and innovators in Cyprus to promote business dialogue and democracy by providing an inclusive space in which Cypriots and all relevant stakeholders island-wide can work together to solve common economic and social challenges.

On the 18th of July,  invited as Transparency in Algorithms Group (TAG) to give a workshop at the “Disinformation Battles: The tools to fight it in the Digital Era”, an event organized by LeadCyprus. RISE was represented by Kyriakos Kyriakou , Styliani Kleanthous and Jahna Otterbacher through their workshop with the  title Fighting “Everyday Bias” : Thoughtfulness in information access

Title:
Speakers: Kyriakos Kyriakou 1 , Styliani Kleanthous 1 2 & Jahna Otterbacher 1 2
1 Transparency in Algorithms Group (TAG) at the Research Centre on Interactive Media, Smart
Systems and Emerging Technologies (RISE)
2 Cyprus Center for Algorithmic Transparency (CyCAT) at Open University Cyprus

Abstract
We live in a modern world where information is presented to us in a blink of the eye. We all rely on search engines and social media to find what we need from vast, online information repositories. However, studies have shown time and time again that most citizens are not particularly critical information consumers. Since many of the information services we rely on everyday have been created from the giants of the tech industry, there is a tendency to connect their brand name with trust; however, we often forget to question the validity of that information. In recent years, we’ve seen countless incidents of Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination in several platforms or end-user products. Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAT*) is an emerging area of research, in which experts are developing ways for identifying, measuring and mitigating algorithmic information biases. Protected groups of individuals may be negatively affected when issues of bias exist. For instance, when it comes to gender or race equality, algorithmic information filtering can exacerbate existing inequalities. In this workshop, we will present two tools for cultivating user thoughtfulness when using information access platforms. One is focused on search, and one concerns algorithmic image processing.