Racism, AI and Ethics - DATAVERSITY

Andrew Heikkila recently wrote in TechCrunch, "Indeed, AI is here -- although Microsoft's blunder with Tay, the'teenaged girl AI' embodied by a Twitter account who'turned racist' shows that we obviously still have a long way to go. The pace of advancement, mixed with our general lack of knowledge in the realm of artificial intelligence, has spurred many to chime in on the emerging topic of AI and ethics. Laura Sydell of NPR decided to drill further into the subject with a news piece asking a relatively simple question: Can Computers Be Racist? Sydell calls upon Latanya Sweeney's 2013 study of Google AdWords buys made by companies providing criminal-background-check services. Sweeney's findings showed that when somebody Googled a traditionally "black-sounding" name, such as DeShawn, Darnell or Jermaine, for example, the ad results returned were indicative of arrests at a significantly higher rate than if the name queried was a traditionally'white-sounding' name, such as Geoffrey, Jill or Emma."