BiasMedium
UT Austin's GRADE Algorithm Reportedly Reduced Review of Lower-Scored PhD Applicants Amid Bias Concerns
- Occurred
- Dec 1, 2012
- Published
- Dec 8, 2020
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
From the 2013 through 2019 admissions cycles, UT Austin's Department of Computer Science used GRADE, a statistical machine-learning system trained on past admissions decisions, to score and organize PhD applications. Critics said the system could reproduce historical admissions inequities and reduce attention to lower-scored applicants, while UT Austin said human reviewers still evaluated each file and later discontinued the tool.
Developers
- University of Texas at Austin researchers
Deployers
- University of Texas at Austin's Department of Computer Science
- Risto Miikkulainen
- Austin Waters
Harmed parties
- University students
- University of Texas at Austin PhD applicants of marginalized groups
- University applicants
- Students
- PhD applicants from underrepresented groups
- PhD applicants
- Educational communities
- Computer science PhD applicants
Classification
Category confidence: 90%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: Algorithm suspected of reinforcing historical inequalities for marginalized candidates, leading to suspension.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8