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Politics
John MacCormick, Professor of Computer Science, Dickinson College

I unintentionally created a biased AI algorithm 25 years ago – tech companies are still making the same mistake

Microsoft Joy Buolamwini Artificial Intelligence Google
Facial recognition software misidentifies Black women more than other people. JLco - Ana Suanes/iStock via Getty Images

In 1998, I unintentionally created a racially biased artificial intelligence algorithm. There are lessons in that story that resonate even more strongly today.

The dangers of bias and errors in AI algorithms are now well known. Why, then, has there been a flurry of blunders by tech companies in recent months, especially in the world of AI chatbots and image generators? Initial versions of ChatGPT produced racist output. The DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion image generators both showed racial bias in the pictures they created.

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