Algorithmic Bias Was Born in the 1980s

In the 1970s, Dr. Geoffrey Franglen of St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London began writing an algorithm to screen student applications for admission. They conducted an internal review of Franglen’s program and noticed certain rules in the system that weighed applicants on the basis of seemingly non-relevant factors, like place of birth and name. At the time, gender and racial discrimination was rampant in British universities—St. George’s was only caught out because it had enshrined its biases in a computer program.

Source: spectrum.ieee.org