Robots are racist and sexist. Just like the people who created them Laurie Penny

Can machines think – and, if so, can they think critically about race and gender? Recent reports have shown that machine-learning systems are picking up racist and sexist ideas embedded in the language patterns they are fed by human engineers. The idea that machines can be as bigoted as people is an uncomfortable one for anyone who still believes in the moral purity of the digital future, but there's nothing new or complicated about it. "Machine learning" is a fancy way of saying "finding patterns in data". Of course, as Lydia Nicholas, senior researcher at the innovation thinktank Nesta, explains, all this data "has to have been collected in the past, and since society changes, you can end up with patterns that reflect the past. If those patterns are used to make decisions that affect people's lives you end up with unacceptable discrimination."