Algorithmic biases: caring about teens’ neurorights

Excerpt

Algorithmic biases are undoubtedly one of the star topics in AI ethics. To get an idea of its importance, we could think of some scandalous recent discoveries in this regard such as a study that showed that the algorithm of the United States health system granted less budget to black people than to white people with the same health problems (Obermeyer et al. 2019). As opposed to this, there is an increasingly influencing trend advocating for the consideration of new human rights, given the ethical challenges that the rapid development of neuroscience and neurotechnology is producing. This view has given rise to proposals of so-called neurorights by groups of philosophers, jurists, and neuroscientists (Ienca and Andorno 2017; Goering et al. 2021). It is among these neurorights that the protection against algorithmic biases occurs. We believe that this is a very interesting and positive initiative. However, the study of algorithmic biases has been focusing mainly on gender and race. Although these two problems seem very serious to us, we want to draw attention to other kind of biases that tend to attract much less attention but affect a particularly vulnerable group: adolescents. The consequences of these biases are especially relevant in criminal law and have particular implications in certain regions of the world such as Latin America. …