UT Austin GRADE Algorithm Allegedly Reinforced Historical Inequalities

December 1, 2012

The University of Texas at Austin's Department of Computer Science temporarily suspended the 'GRADE' algorithm used for PhD applicant assessment, due to concerns that it may have exacerbated historical inequalities for underrepresented candidates. This incident underscores the importance of trustworthy AI and the need for safe and secure AI practices. For those interested in shaping the future of responsible AI, join us at HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM where we Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage such critical incidents to promote harm prevention and guardrails for AI.

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Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.693, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.683, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 1.3 — similarity 0.672, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: university-of-texas-at-austin's-department-of-computer-science
Alleged developer: university-of-texas-at-austin-researchers
Alleged harmed parties: university-of-texas-at-austin-phd-applicants-of-marginalized-groups

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/135

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

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