instead the financial technology companies generate their own scores and probabilities for example some models confuse correlation with causality an entrepreneur s education or the type of school attended may be correlated with his or her income and business management skills but is not sufficient for determining his or her future income or ability to repay a loan the past and present however often involve significant social economic and historical biases that can undermine an entrepreneurs ability to obtain finance or credit this raises issues of fairness and equality of opportunity even in an environment that depends so heavily on algorithms