Are You Suggesting Math is Biased?

I had a conversation with an AI policy friend a while back. We were just sort of idly chatting about AI in the news. I'm incredibly concerned about bias, like many people, and it's sort of my go-to flogging horse. I'll add links in the 'extra reading' section at the end, but I hope readers already understand why.

"Are you suggesting math is biased?"

The question caught me off guard, but the fervor more so. At the time, I just said something like "I'm not suggesting math is biased, I'm suggesting that humans are biased and that can be reflected in our math if we're not careful."

But the moment stuck in my mind, until finally I sat down to write about it here. I'm not really even sure of my intended audience or purpose in writing, in all honesty. It was a passing moment and an idle conversation.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I think I misspoke. The more I think that maybe math is, in fact, biased.

Let's back up a second, because I know that saying "maybe math is biased" is an insanely unpopular thing to say. And I see why. Everyone has a hot-stove flinch reaction to something. Some social norm that is so deeply ingrained and/or cherished that calling it into question results in an immediate violent rejection. Liberal intellectuals love to point out those moments in conservative thought, but we have ours, too. And I believe that this is one of them.

It comes from an excellent place. We want to believe in rational thought and discourse. In seeking truth honestly and rigorously. That science and math are the bedrock we can count on. And they are. But there are many ways to describe the universe.

So yes, math is a construct. The underlying rules that govern the motion of stars or the germination of a seed are not biased. But the way we describe those things is.

This is not at all to say that we should abandon all constructs. It's possible that fiction is the greatest attainment of humankind. The ability to use metaphor and symbols is what allows us to communicate. Maybe even what makes us human. And in a far less lofty and abstract sense... our shared fictions/constructs are the only way that we can operate on a day-to-day basis.

But it is vital that we recognize these fictions for what they are.