How AI-Powered Tech Can Harm Children

A new study from University of Washington and Johns Hopkins shows that robots trained on artificial intelligence make decisions imbued with racism and sexism. Of course, robots are only the latest in a long line of new technologies found to perpetuate harmful stereotypes--so do search engines, social media, and video games, as well as other popular tech products trained on huge sets of data and driven by algorithms. That devices feed racist and sexist misinformation to adults is terrible enough. But, as a psychologist and advocate for kids, I worry even more about what's being fed to children, including the very young, who are also exposed to--and influenced by--tech-delivered misinformation about race. The study comes out at a time when, across the U.S., a wave of new legislation is censoring what educators can discuss in the classroom, including topics of race, slavery, gender identity, and politics.