Artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly used to offload decision making from people. In the past, one of the rationales for this replacement was that machines, unlike people, can be fair and unbiased. Evidence suggests otherwise. We begin by entertaining the ideas that algorithms can replace people and that algorithms cannot be biased. Taken as axioms, these statements quickly lead to absurdity. Spurred on by this result, we investigate the slogans more closely and identify equivocation surrounding the word 'bias.' We diagnose three forms of outrage-intellectual, moral, and political-that are at play when people react emotionally to algorithmic bias. Then we suggest three practical approaches to addressing bias that the AI community could take, which include clarifying the language around bias, developing new auditing methods for intelligent systems, and building certain capabilities into these systems. We conclude by offering a moral regarding the conversations about algorithmic bias that may transfer to other areas of artificial intelligence.

翻译：人工智能和机器学习越来越多地被用于替代人类进行决策。过去，这种替代的一个理由在于，机器与人类不同，可以做到公平无偏。证据表明并非如此。我们首先接受“算法可以替代人类”和“算法不可能存在偏见”这两个观点，将它们作为公理，但这些陈述迅速导致了荒谬的结果。受此启发，我们更仔细地审视这些口号，并识别出围绕“偏见”一词的歧义。我们诊断出当人们对算法偏见产生情绪化反应时，所涉及的三种愤怒形式——智识上的、道德上的和政治上的。随后，我们提出人工智能社区可以采取的三条应对偏见的实用途径，包括澄清有关偏见的语言、开发智能系统的新型审计方法、以及在系统中构建某些能力。最后，我们提供了一条可能适用于人工智能其他领域的关于算法偏见讨论的启示。