Prejudice AI? Machine Learning Can Pick up Society's Biases

We think of computers as emotionless automatons and artificial intelligence as stoic, zen-like programs, mirroring Mr. Spock, devoid of prejudice and unable to be swayed by emotion. A team of researchers at Princeton University's engineering school have proven otherwise, in a new study. They say that AI picks up our innate biases about sex and race, even when we ourselves may be unaware of them. The results of this study were published in the journal Science. This may not be too surprising after a Microsoft snafu in March last year, when a chatbot named Tat had to be taken off Twitter.