5.3 Computing Bias

Intentional or Purposeful bias

  • Google “What age groups use Facebook” vs “… TikTok”? What does the data say? Is there purposeful exclusion in these platforms? Is it harmful? Should it be corrected? Is it good business?

Facebook is used for the age groups from 25-34 and TikTok is used for the age groups from 13-17. The data is stating that Facebook has an older audience. There is no purposeful exclusion in these platforms because all people are able to access the app, people are just not choosing to use this app. Their business could benefit from more ages using it because it allows for more customers. It could harm people by splitting up the different generations.

  • Why do virtual assistants have female voices? Amazon, Alexa Google, Apple Siri. Was this purposeful? Is it harmful? Should it be corrected? Is it good business?

Virtual assistants have female voices because woman are seen to have more gentle and society has given woman role of helping othe people. Female voices also tendd to articulate vowel sounds ore clearly than men. One way this could be changed is that people get to choose the voice that is used for their virtual assistant and that will help the business. This is not particularly harmful, but others can take it as something that is discriminatory.

  • Talk about an algorithm that influences your decisions, think about these companies (ie FAANG - Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google)

Social Media apps will give users a recommended post or video that seem to be fit for the specific person. This post is catered to the previous searches or videos that the person has seen. This will influence people to more likely click on the post that is something that they like. This allows for more likes or views on a post.

Racist HP Laptop

  • Does the owner of the computer think this was intentional?

The owner of the computer does think that this was intentional.

  • If yes or no, justify you conclusion.

He does think it is intentional because he thinks that the people who created the HP laptop did not allow for people with dark skin to use the feature solely because of the color of their skin.

  • How do you think this happened?

HP did not do a good job at testing this feature to ensure that they are not excluding other people.

  • Is this harmful? Was it intended to be harmful or exclude?

This is harmful because it excludes a large demographic of people. This was not intentional but it was harmful.

  • Should it be corrected?

This should be corrected because it does not allow for a lot of people to use the feature and it is harmful to people.

  • What would you or should you do to produce a better outcome?

Ensure that you test to make sure that the feature works for everyone. Make sure that the testing accounts for everyone that is going to be using the product.

5.4 Crowdsourcing

  • CompSci has 150 ish principles students. Describe a crowdsource idea and how you might initiate it in our environment?

A crowdsource idea that could be used in CompSci that is already implemented is the Slack website chat we use. In this website everyone is able to input their problems that they are having and anyone can respond and help others out.

  • What about Del Norte crowdsourcing? Could your project be better with crowdsourcing?

Del Norte crowdsourcing for our project can be added by adding a section where the user is able to leave comments on a certain page. This allows for either us or other users to respond. It will also allow for others to see the experiences that people are having.

  • What kind of data could you capture at N@tM to make evening interesting? Perhaps use this data to impress Teachers during finals week.

We could have users at N@TM to put their symptoms and remedies that worked for them and the comments that they make on the motivation. We can also see the comments that they are making to each other.