Improve your AI models with diverse data

Diverse data enhances the robustness and accuracy of generative AI models, directly impacting business value and ROI.

July 22, 2024
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 min read
Improve your AI models with diverse data

Diverse data enhances the robustness and accuracy of generative AI models, directly impacting business value and ROI by giving more reliable and inclusive outputs. This leads to better decision-making, improved customer satisfaction, and broader market reach.

By minimizing biases, businesses can avoid costly errors and reputation damage, ultimately driving higher returns on investment and fostering trust in AI-driven solutions.

Real-life examples of how data diversity drives growth

  • E-commerce: Personalized recommendations boost sales.
  • Healthcare: Accurate diagnosis across diverse patient data.
  • Finance: Fair lending practices through unbiased credit scoring.
  • Marketing: Targeted ads based on varied consumer behavior.
  • Customer Service: Chatbots understanding diverse customer queries.

So whether your organization is training models, or assessing what models to enhance your product or solution with, keep data diversity and accuracy in mind.

The benefits of diverse data in AI model training

  • Reducing bias: Mitigates unfair outcomes by exposing the model to varied perspectives.
  • Enhancing generalization: Improves model performance on new, unseen data.
  • Improving model accuracy: Increases precision through exposure to a richer set of examples.
  • Reflecting real-world scenarios: Ensures AI mirrors the diversity found in practical applications.
  • Ethical responsibility: Promotes fairness and prevents exacerbation of social inequalities.
  • Expanding use cases: Enables AI to be applied across a broader range of domains.

How to source diverse data

1. APIs and open data sources

APIs are a great way to access data from various platforms. For example, you can use the World Bank API to collect economic data from different countries, ensuring you capture diverse geographical and demographic information.

Here’s how you can fetch data using the World Bank API:

1import requests
2import pandas as pd
3
4def fetch_world_bank_data(indicator, start_year, end_year, countries):
5    base_url = f"http://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/{countries}/indicator/{indicator}"
6    params = {
7        'date': f'{start_year}:{end_year}',
8        'format': 'json',
9        'per_page': 1000  # adjust per page count as needed
10    }
11    response = requests.get(base_url, params=params)
12    
13    if response.status_code == 200:
14        data = response.json()[1]  # the actual data is in the second element of the returned list
15        return pd.DataFrame(data)
16    else:
17        print(f"Failed to fetch data: {response.status_code}")
18        return None
19
20# Example usage: Fetch GDP data for the United States, Canada, and Mexico from 2010 to 2020
21indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"  # GDP (current US$)
22start_year = 2010
23end_year = 2020
24countries = "US;CA;MX"
25
26gdp_data = fetch_world_bank_data(indicator, start_year, end_year, countries)
27
28if gdp_data is not None:
29    print(gdp_data.head())  # display the first few rows of the dataframe
30

2. Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing platforms like CrowdFlower allow you to gather data directly from individuals. You can set up tasks for users to complete, such as surveys or user-generated content, ensuring a broad demographic reach. This approach helps you collect data from different regions and various demographic groups, enriching the diversity of your dataset.

Example of setting up a crowdsourcing task using Python

1from mturk_crowdsourcing import MTurkClient
2
3mturk = MTurkClient('AWS_ACCESS_KEY', 'AWS_SECRET_KEY', region_name='us-east-1')
4task = mturk.create_task(title="Provide demographic data", description="Submit information about your location and demographics.", reward=0.50)

3. Diverse data repositories

Many data repositories offer datasets that include demographic and geographic information. Sites like UCI Machine Learning Repository and Kaggle Datasets provide a wide variety of datasets. Look for those that cover different demographic groups and geographic locations.

Example of downloading a dataset from Kaggle

1import kaggle
2
3# Download dataset from Kaggle
4kaggle.api.dataset_download_files('world-bank/world-development-indicators', path='./data', unzip=True)

4. Collaboration with Organizations

Partnering with international organizations, NGOs, and academic institutions can give you access to diverse datasets. These entities often collect data in various regions and across different demographic groups. Collaborating with them can enhance the diversity of your data.

Example pseudocode for collaborating with an organization def

1def partner_with_organization(org_api_url, access_token):
2    headers = {'Authorization': f'Bearer {access_token}'}
3    response = requests.get(org_api_url, headers=headers)
4    if response.status_code == 200:
5        return response.json()
6    else:
7        return None
8
9organization_data = partner_with_organization("https://api.organization.org/data", "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN")

5. Manual Data Collection

Conducting field surveys or using mobile data collection tools like Open Data Kit (ODK) allows you to gather data directly from specific regions and demographics. This method ensures that you get firsthand information, which can be highly

Example pseudocode for ODK data collection

def collect_data_using_odk(form_id, odk_server_url):
    # Connect to ODK server and retrieve form data
    odk_data = requests.get(f'{odk_server_url}/formData?formId={form_id}')
    return odk_data.json()

odk_data = collect_data_using_odk("demographic_survey", "https://odk.server.url")

Wrap-up

Diverse data sourcing is not just a technical necessity but a fundamental aspect of developing fair, accurate, and robust AI systems. By including a wide range of data in the training process, developers can create AI models that perform well across different contexts and populations, reduce bias, and fulfill ethical responsibilities.

This approach ensures that AI technologies are more inclusive, reliable, and useful in real-world applications, ultimately benefiting a broader range of users and scenarios.

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