Algorithms underpin large and small decisions on a massive scale every day: who gets screened for diseases like diabetes, who receives a kidney transplant, how police resources are allocated, who sees ads for housing or employment, how recidivism rates are calculated, and so on. Under the right circumstances, algorithms—procedures used for solving a problem or performing a computation—can improve the efficiency and equity of human decision-making.
Rethinking algorithmic decision-making based on ‘fairness’
