Bias is a systematic trend that causes differences between results and facts. Error exists in the numbers of the data analysis process, including the source of the data, the estimate chosen, and how the data is analyzed. Error can seriously affect the results, for example, when studying people’s shopping habits. If the sample size is not large enough, the results may not reflect the buying habits of all people. That is, there may be discrepancies between survey results and actual results153.
Biased algorithm – systematic and repetitive errors in a computer system that lead to unfair results, such as one privilege persecuting groups of users over others. Also, sexist and racist algorithms154,155.
Bidirectional (BiDi) is a term used to describe a system that evaluates the text that both precedes and follows a target section of text. In contrast, a unidirectional system only evaluates the text that precedes a target section of text156.
Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) is a model architecture for text representation. A trained BERT model can act as part of a larger model for text classification or other ML tasks. BERT has the following characteristics: Uses the Transformer architecture, and therefore relies on self-attention. Uses the encoder part of the Transformer. The encoder’s job is to produce good text representations, rather than to perform a specific task like classification. Is bidirectional. Uses masking for unsupervised training157,158.
Bidirectional language model is a language model that determines the probability that a given token is present at a given location in an excerpt of text based on the preceding and following text159.
Big data is a term for sets of digital data whose large size, rate of increase or complexity requires significant computing power for processing and special software tools for analysis and presentation in the form of human-perceptible results160.
Big O notation is a mathematical notation that describes the limiting behavior of a function when the argument tends towards a particular value or infinity. It is a member of a family of notations invented by Paul Bachmann, Edmund Landau, and others, collectively called Bachmann—Landau notation or asymptotic notation161.
Bigram – an N-grams in which N=2162.
Binary choice regression model is a regression model in which the dependent variable is dichotomous or binary. Dependent variable can take only two values and mean, for example, belonging to a particular group163.
Binary classification is a type of classification task that outputs one of two mutually exclusive classes. For example, a machine learning model that evaluates email messages and outputs either «spam» or «not spam» is a binary classifier164.
Binary format is any file format in which information is encoded in some format other than a standard character-encoding scheme. A file written in binary format contains information that is not displayable as characters. Software capable of understanding the particular binary format method of encoding information must be used to interpret the information in a binary-formatted file. Binary formats are often used to store more information in less space than possible in a character format file. They can also be searched and analyzed more quickly by appropriate software. A file written in binary format could store the number «7» as a binary number (instead of as a character) in as little as 3 bits (i.e., 111), but would more typically use 4 bits (i.e., 0111). Binary formats are not normally portable, however. Software program files are written in binary format. Examples of numeric data files distributed in binary format include the IBM-binary versions of the Center for Research in Security Prices files and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Trade Data Bank on CD-ROM. The International Monetary Fund distributes International Financial Statistics in a mixed-character format and binary (packed-decimal) format. SAS and SPSS store their system files in binary format165.
Binary number is a number written using binary notation which only uses zeros and ones. Example: Decimal number 7 in binary notation is: 111166.
Binary tree is a tree data structure in which each node has at most two children, which are referred to as the left child and the right child. A recursive definition using just set theory notions is that a (non-empty) binary tree is a tuple (L, S, R), where L and R are binary trees or the empty set and S is a singleton set. Some authors allow the binary tree to be the empty set as well167.
Binning is the process of combining charge from neighboring pixels in a CCD during readout. This process is performed prior to digitization in the CCD chip using dedicated serial and parallel register control. The two main benefits of binning are improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the ability to increase frame rates, albeit at the cost of reduced spatial resolution.
Bioconservatism (a portmanteau of biology and conservatism) is a stance of hesitancy and skepticism regarding radical technological advances, especially those that seek to modify or enhance the human condition. Bioconservatism is characterized by a belief that technological trends in today’s society risk compromising human dignity, and by opposition to movements and technologies including transhumanism, human genetic modification, «strong» artificial intelligence, and the technological singularity. Many bioconservatives also oppose the use of technologies such as life extension and preimplantation genetic screening168,169.
Biometrics is a people recognition system, one or more physical or behavioral traits170,171.
Black box is a description of some deep learning system. They take an input and provide an output, but the calculations that occur in between are not easy for humans to interpret172,173.
Blackboard system is an artificial intelligence approach based on the blackboard architectural model, where a common knowledge base, the «blackboard», is iteratively updated by a diverse group of specialist knowledge sources, starting with a problem specification and ending with a solution. Each knowledge source updates the blackboard with a partial solution when its internal constraints match the blackboard state. In this