Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?

This is a song that I published on January 11^th 2022 about love and heartbreak. It is one title in an album I created for my CAS project. This song explores the nature of breakups and how painful they tend to be, for both parties. It includes the perspectives of both people involved in

the relationship and the subsequent break-up. The self-antagonization present from beginning to end is key, because it can be considered to be biased, to a great extent. It is human nature to feel guilty towards and empathise with others, as well as to be selfish and go after what one wants; even if it is not in other’s best interest. In the song the man is subconsciously trying to win the woman back, despite him knowing he’s bad for her. He’s empathising with her by being biased against himself in order to achieve what he truly wants; getting back with her. However, what the man is saying isn’t the absolute truth because in this case, truth is relative to each individual. Natural bias is present in the arts as an area of knowledge. Works produced in the arts are generally tied to the personal experiences the artists have been through and thus mostly depend on their personal knowledge and their personal biases – whether interpretations or perspectives. In conflicts, subjectivity is vastly present and will probably lead to the same story being told differently from one person to another because every single person has a different perspective. The arts is founded on subjectivity and interpretation since a specific work of art could be interpreted differently by different artists as well as audiences. This object is particularly coherent with the theme of the prompt because bias is close to inevitable in the arts which is an area of knowledge that depends mostly on personal knowledge, personal interpretations and perspectives which are also developed through different prior knowledge and experience and therefore subjective. This also relates to knowledge and language because the lyrics of songs consist of words that can be used either to manipulate or evoke certain emotions. Bias therefore seems inevitable in the production of knowledge in the arts.

This is my Casio graphic calculator model Fx CG-50 that I bought at the beginning of the IB since it is a prerequisite for the Mathematics HL course. This type of calculator can solve nearly all mathematical problems with a few clicks; simultaneous equations, solving for x, trigonometry and even the drawing of graphs. I deemed this object pertinent to my exhibition because the knowledge produced by calculators tends to have almost no bias. They operate using a digitally computerized system that only understands code and numbers and thus there’s virtually no way it can be biased. The majority of mathematical knowledge is usually reliable and accurate as there is almost no room for error - numerical calculations predominate. Mathematics utilizes scientifically proven formulas which thus renders the knowledge present in this domain accurate and characterized by a high level of certainty. There could still be a small chance of error and this error would typically be a result of the user’s misuse / miscomprehension and not the validity of the formula nor the numbers used. Mathematics is present in our everyday lives without us even noticing it : when we go to the store to buy anything we subconsciously subtract and add to calculate the money we have to pay and the change we have to receive. It permeates through everything, it’s embedded into the core of the world; it is one of the AOKs that boasts universal knowledge. The use of mathematical tools such as this calculator - in producing knowledge in mathematics - involves a high level of accuracy, reliability and objectivity – which demonstrates that bias is not always inevitable in the production of knowledge. With regard to knowledge and language – mathematical language is usually void of bias.

The third and final object in this exhibition is Alexa. Alexa is Amazon’s voice based artificial intelligence system. Alexa can respond to any voice commands or tasks that one gives (checking the weather, checking the news ... And it can also provide entertainment (playing songs, provide sports scores... ). It might be unclear how this technology could possibly include bias but it’s because it operates with a female voice. Much like other AI systems (Siri for example), Alexa responds to commands in a female voice which in turn reinforces gender bias. Whether this was done intentionally or not, by giving a technology whose sole purpose of serving the owner and responding to their commands a female voice; it indirectly reinforces an outdated and controversial stereotype of a woman’s role being one of serving others. This, of course, may not have been the company’s intention but in their production of this piece of knowledge they ended up indirectly including a degree of bias in it. After the product launch, there were updates where users had the option to change the voice into that of a man but the fact that the default setting was that of a woman’s speaks a lot about how bias is practically unpreventable in the production of knowledge. Some opinions suggest that the use of a female voice is due to people being more comfortable with it instead of a man’s voice but the notion of it being due to gender stereotypes is still valid. In this case, this degree of bias ended up strengthening the misogynistic mentality that certain individuals within our communities possess; this just proves that bias (whether intentional or not) is sometimes inevitable in the production of knowledge due to the existence of certain stereotypes.