MOSTLY AI has recently been mentioned in an excellent article about synthetic data by the MIT Technology Review. We are honored to have been featured and would like to elaborate on some topics Karen Hao, the renowned AI journalist, raised.
On synthetic data's potential for fair AI
As the article states, extrapolating new data from an existing data set indeed reproduces the biases embedded in the original. However, it is possible to augment the data to make it fairer via synthetization. For example, our team fixed the racial bias in the infamous Compas recidivism data set and reduced the racial difference in the data from 24% to a mere 1% by introducing demographic parity through the synthetization process. Thus, our research proves that it is indeed possible to synthesize near bias-free versions of your data.
According to Christo Wilson, an associate professor of computer science at Northeastern University, perfectly balanced data sets don't automatically translate into perfectly fair AI systems. They don't. That is exactly why you need synthetic data. Simply upping subject numbers for minorities or removing sensitive categories like race does not solve the issue. Synthetization, on the other hand, is capable of fixing biases in a holistic way, regenerating data to reflect reality not as it is but as we would like to see it.
As long as you are aware of your biases and your definition of fairness is solid and fits the specific case you are looking at, you can create a data set that satisfies these constraints. If you are curious and would like to know more, check out our fair synthetic data research poster presented at the ICLR 2021 machine learning conference!
Synthetic data for explainable AI
The article quotes one of our favorite ethical AI activists, Cathy O'Neil: 'As regulators confront the need to test AI systems for legal compliance, it could be the only approach that gives them the flexibility they need to generate on-demand, targeted testing data.' Indeed, the role of synthetic data is about to become even more pronounced with the upcoming AI regulations looming over Europe and elsewhere. Synthetic data can provide local interpretability to AI systems, essentially functioning as a window into the workings of an algorithm. If you are curious about how synthetic data can power explainable AI in practical terms, check out our recent synthetic data for XAI manifesto!
To the future of synthetic data and beyond
Cathy O'Neil says, 'Synthetic data is likely to get better over time, but not by accident.' We couldn't agree more, and our world-class team of scientists and engineers is constantly working on just that. If you would like to be there when synthetic data breakthroughs happen, sign up for the MOSTLY AI newsletter!
