Imagine applying for a job and being instantly rejected—not by a person, but by an algorithm. Or imagine a judge using software to predict if someone is likely to commit a crime again—and using that score to decide how long they’ll be in prison. These aren’t science fiction stories. They’re happening today, and they raise an important question: is it ethical to let machines shape such major parts of our lives? What Is Predictive AI? Predictive AI is a kind of artificial intelligence that uses past data to guess what might happen in the future. For example, a system could be trained on years of data about employees to predict who’s likely to succeed in a certain role. Or it could use crime statistics to estimate the risk of someone reoffending after release from jail. These systems look at patterns that humans might miss—but that doesn’t mean they’re always right, or fair. The Problem of Bias One major issue with predictive AI is that it can inherit bias from the data it’s trained ...