Bug in the System
What can a mistake in a computer program from 1843 tell us about modern-day biases in software algorithms?
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Episode Notes
The first-ever computer program was written in 1843 by Ada Lovelace, a mathematician who hoped her farsighted treatise on mechanical computers would lead to a glittering scientific career. Today, as we worry that modern systems suffer from “algorithmic bias” against some groups of people, what can her program tell us about how software, and the people who make it, can go wrong?
Podcast production by Bart Warshaw and Kate Holland.
