How AI is unfairly targeting and discriminating against Black people
The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here, and it’s bringing a new era of technology that is already creating and impacting the world. It was the story of 2023, and its emphasis isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
While the creative growth of AI occurring so rapidly is a fascinating development for our society, it’s important to remember its harms that cannot be ignored, especially pertaining to racial bias and discrimination against African-Americans.
In recent years, there has been research revealing that AI technologies have struggled to identify images and speech patterns of nonwhite people. Black AI researchers at tech giants creating AI technology have raised concerns about its harms against the Black community.
The concerns surrounding AI’s racial biases and harms against Black people are serious and should be a big focus as 2024 gets underway. We invited University of Michigan professor, Harvard Faculty Associate and former Mozilla Foundation Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI, Apryl Williams, to dive into this topic further. Williams studies experiences of gender and race at the intersection of digital spaces and algorithmic technocultures, and her most recent book, “Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating,” exposes how race-based discrimination is a fundamental part of the most popular and influential dating algorithms.
To start, as a professor, I’m curious to know: How aware do you think students are of the dangers of the technology they’re using? Beyond the simple things like screen time notifications they might get, and more about AI problems, misinformation, etc.?
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__treehugger__images__2018__03__IMG_1257-41a4598fa66f4e0aa5749da8af60ed66.jpg)
