Two things are new: 1. Machine learning is increasingly being involved in important decisions. 2. Deep neural networks have become a popular technique, and th

Two things are new: 1. Machine learning is increasingly being involved in important decisions. 2. Deep neural networks have become a popular technique, and their results are particularly difficult to explain. If you're a bank and your AI says somebody is likely to default on the mortgage they're applying for and you can't demonstrate that their race or a proxy therefor wasn't a factor in that calculation, they'll have a settlement and won't need a mortgage.