By asking them. You can't just ask an algorithm, it must be designed to show its own work. Credibility is another problem...

Why can’t you just test the algorithm? It’s not conclusive, but it’s also not worthless.

Seems to me that’s a viable answer. How can we test an algorithm like Google’s ranking though? We can’t feed it consistent data like in a software test. It relies on too much information, and what we know about it indicates we can’t extract it out to test against it—except for results in the real world.

Not to mention Facebook’s are even more difficult. Tangentially related, remember when you could use “View As” on your profile page to see what your profile looked like to others? It doesn’t work anymore, only works for Public and Yourself; you can no longer choose the person to view as.

It’d be great to test these algorithms. We can’t. They need to be designed and instrumented so this is possible.

lol. sorry, but that reminds me of a skit by an Australian comedian:

male guest: "now first of all, let me just start by saying I'm not racist..."

female guest: "pfft..."

host: "ah see you made a noise there, but a lot of people accuse him of being a racist, so I think it's very helpful to know that he actually isn't one..."

Right, like I said, credibility is a different problem. But at this point, we don't even get a lie from them, we get nothing. At least a lie can be checked and examined. There's nothing available at all currently.

We actually have a reasonable way to test for human biases in AI - perturb the input a bit and see how the AI responds - For e.g., change the name, change the gender etc. and we use them to measure if AI is fair. It is different question whether all AI can be subject to such tests. For e.g., how will you detect a human bias in a page ranking algorithm? but for where it matters, you can test them and we do test them.

Yes. True and fair. But how can we test the page rank algorithm “ourselves"? Who is "we" in the "we do test them"? Is the public even asking for 3rd party examinations by transparent/public organizations (or at least, publicly funded)? Seems like we only get to "test" against the live system, and third party examination seems relatively impossible. It seems like something with such far reaching and invasive results should be more accessible, at the very least.

Very few people have the ability to influence the success or failure of every business on the planet. Those that do are heavily scrutinized for racist or sexist behavior. (Sometimes they also don't get convicted anyways, but that's another matter.)

> Very few people have the ability to influence the success or failure of every business on the planet.

In other words the solution to this should be antitrust enforcement and decentralization of power.