MSFT Insemination Algorithm: Too Much Herbe Matte and Twisted Bolos?
February 28, 2022
Microsoft, what were you thinking? Wired describes “The Case of the Creepy Algorithm that ‘Predicted’ Teen Pregnancy.” Creepy is right. The setting is 2018 Argentina, as legislators were debating whether to decriminalize abortion. (It did finally become legal there in 2020.) We learn:
“The Ministry of Early Childhood in the northern province of Salta and the American tech giant Microsoft presented an algorithmic system to predict teenage pregnancy. They called it the Technology Platform for Social Intervention. … The stated goal was to use the algorithm to predict which girls from low-income areas would become pregnant in the next five years. It was never made clear what would happen once a girl or young woman was labeled as ‘predestined’ for motherhood or how this information would help prevent adolescent pregnancy. The social theories informing the AI system, like its algorithms, were opaque. The system was based on data—including age, ethnicity, country of origin, disability, and whether the subject’s home had hot water in the bathroom—from 200,000 residents in the city of Salta, including 12,000 women and girls between the ages of 10 and 19. Though there is no official documentation, from reviewing media articles and two technical reviews, we know that ‘territorial agents’ visited the houses of the girls and women in question, asked survey questions, took photos, and recorded GPS locations.”
The targets of these intrusions were all poor, and many are members of immigrants or indigenous peoples. Such overbearing treatment is nothing new for those communities, nor is it unusual for Argentina’s women and girls in general. While the government positioned the technology as a way to combat teen pregnancy, it never described how that would work. Critics insist it was actually a way to blame girls and women for their situations with no consideration for context. Like the high rate of sexual violence, for example. In theory, the subjects could have declined to participate, but that would mean defying the ministry that provides them with free vaccinations and milk. A collaboration of journalist Diego Jemio, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty, and Argentine feminist activist and researcher Florencia Aranda, the article provides a detailed historical backdrop against which this affront should be viewed. Navigate to the article for that compelling, and at times enraging, account.
Argentina is eager to become a leader in the AI field. However, unlike the US or the EU, Argentina has no process to determine the impact of AI systems on citizens, never mind adequate regulations. As a result, no formal review of the Technology Platform for Social Intervention’s impact on women and girls was ever produced nor data on its accuracy or outcomes ever published. The authors could not even determine whether the program is still in operation. We suppose transparency is too much to ask from Argentina’s Ministry of Early Childhood. Microsoft, what do you have to say?
Cynthia Murrell, February 28, 2022
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