I Love Machine Learning, But Sometimes Dislike Its Application
Everything we do in our research is for the benefit for social change and for economic development, and machine learning is playing an increasing role. You can find some of our demos here
We have rained against a Big Brother society, and where our governments go too far in spying on their citizens. Our second spin-out - Symphonic - is all about citizens having control of their own data. So I hang my head in shame in the approach that some US states and national governments are taking, and which aims to predict whether a mother and father are fit to be parents before the child is even born. The good news is that New York City aims to stop this type of profiling
The worst part of this is that the rate of false-positives, within some studies, give 95% (with only a 5% success rate)
Many overpromise on machine learning, and to allow computers to profile on people's fitness to be a parent, and completely dehumanises the whole process. If we ever move to this kind of world, we should leave our planet to governments and machines. It will be a world without compassion, and where computers predict our every move. In fact, we just become another computer profile.
Trust in building a new world will evaporate.
Have a read of the article, and make up your own mind [here].
Digital methods can bring new ways to support citizens, and data analytics and machine learning will play a key part of this. The state does need to understand when it oversteps the mark, and where our world becomes the nightmare envisioned by George Orwell.
Sometimes things start with the best of intent, but end-up with poor deliverables. I believe the Name Person's Act in Scotland is an example of a system which started off with great intent - GIRFEC - but, someone, somewhere, forgot that the child and their families have the rights to know how the risk assessment works. I've yet to meet one parent who actually knows how the Named Person's Act will work in Scotland. An opportunity lost, by the state thinking that it knows best, and operates within a closed environment.