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Algorithms have become one of the most powerful arbiters in our lives. They make decisions about the news we read, the jobs we get, the people we meet, the schools we attend and the ads we see. Yet there is growing evidence that algorithms and other types of software can discriminate.

The people who write them incorporate their biases, and algorithms often learn from human behavior, so they reflect the biases we hold.

Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in Machine Learning workshop, which considers the role that machines play in consequential decisions in areas like employment, health care and policing.

On the call with reporters, Mr. Vladeck said he had little patience with Google’s explanation, and referred to other privacy violations about which Google has also said it was unaware, like collecting personal data with its Street View cars. “As a regulator, it is hard to know which answer is worse — I didn’t know or I did it deliberately,”

Google and other advertising companies use cookies, which are small files that contain information about Web users, to show personalized ads as Internet users travel around the Web. If an Internet user visits fashion Web sites, for instance, Google might show the person ads for clothing companies on other Web sites that person visits.

According to the data, students exposed to lecture more than other classroom activities showed more significant learning gains than their peers

Burgan points out that “being clueless in a discussion class is much more embarrassing and destructive of a student’s self confidence than struggling to understand in the anonymity of a lecture.” As a college student, I was often advised by well-meaning adults to sign-up for seminars rather than lectures in order to get “face time.” To be perfectly honest, though, the lecture format, far more than the noisy seminar, enabled me to think deeply about a topic rather than being distracted by poorly planned and redundant comments from peers (often aggravated by a teacher who is reluctant, for fear of being too top-down in terms of pedagogy, to deflect them).

They are delivered on engaging topics, by engaging people, and they offer time for reflection by the audience. Ever since Susan Cain delivered her 2012 TED talk “The Power of Introverts,”