Fairness and Inclusivity are two highly related yet subtly different concepts.

The more subjective of the two is fairness, which we’ll define here as the importance of treating everyone the same, including bias against disability. Fairness in AI means that systems should treat all people equally and equitably, without bias or discrimination. Notoriously difficult to quantify, ensuring fairness involves identifying and eliminating biases in AI systems that might lead to unfair treatment of individuals based on attributes such as race, gender, age, or other protected characteristics. It is essential for maintaining trust and social harmony.

A typical employee hiring process offers a real-world example of this principle. Imagine a company using an AI-based recruitment tool. To ensure fairness, the company must regularly audit the AI system for biases and make necessary adjustments. For example, if the system favors candidates from certain demographics over others without a valid reason, the algorithms need to be revised to eliminate such biases.

Age, interestingly, has become quite a common manifestation of the fairness problem in AI wherein models are unduly influenced by the extraordinary amount of internet content produced by members of younger generations, and inadvertently favor members of those generations in processes such as hiring.

Inclusivity is relatively more straight forward to quantity and measure, ensuring that AI systems are accessible and beneficial to a diverse range of people, including those with disabilities. This principle underscores the importance of designing AI technologies that are usable by people from all backgrounds and abilities. It promotes equal access to AI's benefits and encourages diverse perspectives in AI development.

For example, consider the development of AI-powered language translation tools. By supporting multiple languages and dialects, these tools enable people from different linguistic backgrounds to communicate more effectively. Adding features such as voice recognition for people with speech impairments further enhances inclusiveness.