Fairness

• The fourth ACM ethical principle is

  Be fair and take action not to discriminate

• Technical knowledge gives us the power to help people
• We have a moral obligation use this ability fairly
• To do this, we must distinguish between two things
  • Prejudice
  • Unconscious Bias
• Prejudice is "preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience"
• In other words, coming to a conclusion about something
• Before examining the evidence
• Prejudice toward minorities is illegal in this country and many others
• Most large companies have policies against this
• This is done for both legal and practical reasons
• Companies do not want to violate the law
• And they don't want to alienate potential customers
• Prejudice does occur in professional life
• But unconscious bias is more prevalent
• It is also harder to recognize
• Prejudice is conscious
• Unconscious bias is not
• Unconscious biases are formed through life experiences
• And the cultural context in which we live
• The brain has two decision making systems
• One slow and the other fast
• The slow system allows us to think about problems
• And come to a well thought out conclusion
• But some dangers come quickly
• And we need to respond to them without taking the time to think
• This is why we have a faster decision system
• As this video explains
• This system is fast
• But not very smart or accurate
• But you can train yourself to learn when this fast system kicks in
• You can learn to stop it from making a biased decision