Copyright The New York Times
Imagine applying for a job. You know you’re a strong candidate with a standout résumé. But you don’t even get a call back. You might not know it, but an artificial intelligence algorithm used to screen applicants has decided that you are too risky. Maybe it inferred you wouldn’t fit the company culture or you’re likely to behave in some way later on that might cause friction (such as joining a union or starting a family). Its reasoning is impossible to see and even harder to challenge. It doesn’t matter that you practice safe digital privacy: keeping most personal details to yourself, avoiding sharing opinions online and prohibiting apps and websites from tracking you. Based on the scant details it has of you, the A.I. predicts how you’ll behave at work, based on patterns it has learned from countless other people like you. This is increasingly life under A.I. Banks can use algorithms to decide who gets a loan, learning from past borrowers to predict who will default. Some police departments have fed years of criminal activity and arrest records into “predictive policing” algorithms that have sometimes sent officers back to patrol the same neighborhoods. Social media platforms use our collective clicks to decide what news — or misinformation — each of us will see. In each case, we might hope that keeping our own data private could protect each of us from unwanted outcomes. But A.I. doesn’t need to know what you have been doing; it only needs to know what people like you have done before. That’s why privacy can no longer be defended one person at a time. As we adapt to living with A.I. as a larger part of our lives, we need to exert collective control over all of our data, to determine if it’s used to benefit or harm us. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
