Blame it on AI | Who or What is an ML Forensic or Ethics Investigator?

20 Aug

When AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) hit the market and became all-encompassing, there was widespread interest from the consumer and business markets. Everyone wanted to get their hands on the latest AI and ML tech and for good reason. Unfortunately, that excitement and trust in the technology has quelled greatly as data breaches and the misuse of data have become synonymous with both of these technologies.

While fear and mistrust have caused a lull in the adoption of AI and ML tech, it is not the end of the road for either of these technologies. In fact, industry experts predict that within the next five years, the global cyber market will see two new positions enter the job market that will once again boost the deployment of AI tech, especially in the corporate world:

  • Ethics investigators
  • Machine learning forensic investigators

The new job listings will come with various supporting roles such as AI behaviour forensic investigators and customer trust specialists.

Trust Lost Through AI Bias

The supposition that AI is an unbiased entity that sees no colour, race, gender or location, is far from the truth. Users have found that AI tech is able to display bias behaviour based on these very things, and it is, in fact, a problem that stems from the training of these AI models.

Deep learning issues can also make interactions present in predictions that end up hard to understand. Of course, using these forms of AI can cause a company to lose customers and suffer corporate and brand reputation tarnishing.

And this is the very reason why job roles such as Machine Learning Forensic Investigators and Ethics Investigators see being developed.

The Role of ML Forensic Investigators and Ethics Investigators

Before a company can implement AI tech, they need to be sure that it contains no undesired bias. Unfortunately, this is hard to do, and the legal implications, if it isn’t done correctly, are considerable.

The role of the ML Forensic and Ethics Investigator is to ensure that all bias no longer exists within the system. Large corporations such as NASA, Google, and even Facebook already have such individuals on their payroll.

These specialists are involved in the development phase. Once the system is deemed “ready to deploy” they also spend a considerable amount of time testing and monitoring the system to ensure that they haven’t missed any bias along the way.

While these two positions will see hundreds of new employees enter the job market within the next five years, it must be noted that various free open source programs already offer systems that help detect and remove unwanted bias from AI tech.

Conclusion

With more and more businesses deploying AI tech to handle specific functions within their businesses and customer services departments, there’s always the risk of AI not behaving as expected. The industry fully expects to see the ML Forensic Investigator and Ethics Investigator role becoming a necessity in the field.

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