One judge\u2019s track record \u2014 with and without algorithm \u2014 surprises researchers<\/p>\n
While several sectors, including criminal justice, medicine, and even business, use AI recommendations, humans are typically the final decision-makers. The researchers took this into account by comparing criminal bail decisions made by a single judge with recommendations generated by an AI system. Specifically analyzed was AI\u2019s influence on whether cash bail should be imposed.<\/p>\n
The randomized controlled trial was conducted in Dane County, Wisconsin, focusing on whether arrestees were released on their own recognizance or subjected to cash bail. The researchers \u2014 led by Imai and Jim Greiner, the Honorable S. William Green Professor of Public Law at Harvard Law School \u2014 set their sights on hearings held by a single judge over a 30-month period, between the middle of 2017 and the end of 2019. Also analyzed were arrest data on defendants for up to 24 months later.<\/p>\n
Results showed that AI alone performed worse than the judge in predicting reoffenders \u2014 in this case, by imposing the tighter restriction of cash bail. At the same time, little to no difference was found between the accuracy of human-alone and AI-assisted decision-making. The judge went against AI recommendations in slightly more than 30 percent of cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised by this,\u201d Greiner said. \u201cGiven the evidence that we\u2019ve cited that algorithms can sometimes outperform human decisions, it looked as though what happened is that this algorithm had been set to be too harsh. It was over-predicting that the arrestees would misbehave, predicting that they would do so too often, and, therefore, recommending measures that were too harsh.\u201d<\/p>\n
This issue could be fixed by recalibrating the algorithm, the professors argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier to understand and then fix the algorithm or AI than the human,\u201d Imai said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot harder to change the human or understand why humans make their decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AI studied here did not specifically account for race, instead focusing on age and nine factors related to past criminal experience. Imai, an expert on deploying statistical modeling to call out racial gerrymandering, attributed inequities concerning cash bail to a variety of societal factors, particularly relating to criminal history.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that the study\u2019s findings may be cause for concern, but he noted that people are biased as well. \u201cThe advantage of AI or an algorithm is that it can be made transparent,\u201d he said. The key is to have open-source AI that is readily available for empirical evaluation and analysis.<\/p>\n
The way the criminal justice system is currently using AI as well as unguided human decisions should be studied with an eye to making improvements, Greiner added. \u201cI don\u2019t know whether this is comforting,\u201d he offered, \u201cbut my reaction for folks who are afraid or skeptical of AI is to be afraid and skeptical of AI, but to be potentially more afraid or skeptical of unguided human decisions.\u201d He added that the way the criminal justice system is currently using AI as well as unguided human decisions should be studied to make improvements.<\/p>\n
The paper\u2019s other co-authors were Eli Ben-Michael, assistant professor of statistics and data science at Carnegie Mellon University; Zhichao Jiang, professor of mathematics at Sun Tay-sen University in China; Melody Huang, a postdoctoral researcher at the Wojcicki Troper Harvard Data Science Institute, and Sooahn Shin, a Ph.D. candidate in government at the Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n
Study co-authors Kosuke Imai (left) and James Greiner.<\/em><\/p>\n Kris Snibbe\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One judge\u2019s track record \u2014 with and without algorithm \u2014 surprises researchers While several sectors, including criminal justice, medicine, and even business, use AI recommendations, humans are typically the final decision-makers. The researchers took this into account by comparing criminal bail decisions made by a single judge with recommendations generated by an AI system. Specifically\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_scj_primary_category_id":55,"_scj_featured":false,"_scj_featured_from":"","_scj_featured_until":"","_scj_featured_order":0,"_scj_visibility_class":"current","_scj_layout_family":"standard","_scj_article_style":"","_scj_display_overrides":[],"_scj_intro_image_id":18458,"_scj_intro_alt":"Does AI help humans make better decisions?","_scj_intro_caption":"","_scj_intro_class":"","_scj_intro_float":"","_scj_full_image_id":18458,"_scj_full_alt":"Does AI help humans make better decisions?","_scj_full_caption":"","_scj_full_class":"","_scj_full_float":"","_scj_media_type":"","_scj_media_provider":"","_scj_media_external_id":"","_scj_media_url":"","_scj_media_poster_id":0,"_scj_media_width":0,"_scj_media_height":0,"_scj_media_aspect_ratio":"","_scj_media_description":"","_scj_gallery_items":[],"_scj_related_post_ids":[],"_scj_additional_authors":[],"scj_layout_family":"standard","scj_media_provider":"","scj_media_url":"","scj_full_caption":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"yoast_head":"\n