It has been said that algorithms are “opinions embedded in code.” Few people understand the implications of that better than Abeba Birhane. Born and raised in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, Birhane moved to Ireland to study: first psychology, then philosophy, then a PhD in cognitive science at University College Dublin.
During her doctorate, she found herself surrounded by software developers and data science students—immersed in the models they were building and the data sets they were using. But she started to realize that no one was really asking questions about what was actually in those data sets.
Artificial intelligence has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives: It can determine whether you get hired,
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