Assignment task: Share your opinion on the following text:
One use of unfair automated decision-making I found was in a new DNA analysis software designed for the criminal justice system. The source code for the Forensic Statistical Tool (or FST) believed could have put innocent people in jail. After both a computer scientist and engineer at a forensics consulting firm reviewed the code, they found that "the correctness of the behavior of the ST software should be seriously questioned."
A man was sentenced to life in prison because of this software, and with thorough investigation, it was proven that another software called "TrueAllele" created bias by using an inconclusive and extremely small amount of DNA evidence to come to a conclusion.
This technology ultimately serves the interests of their creators, by deepening their pockets, and the court system, while promoting discriminatory practices in order to make the justice system much less effective and accurate in order to achieve a previously unobtainable level of efficiency. Not only does it make the usual courtroom attendants such as a judge or lawyer's job significantly easier, but also eases the burden of analyzing cases and going through time-consuming resources because of how quick people can be to say, "Why not just identify the data and listen to the A.l.?"
By blindly following what the algorithms say is correct, we disregard the age-old saying "innocent until proven guilty", allowing for a more ineffective justice system that is allowed to make mistakes that can create terrible casualties. As individuals, it plants a seed of autonomy in our minds, persuading us to believe that following creations that might ease our concerns about discriminatory practices is a better option than using our own critical thinking.