Artificial intelligence has a racial bias problem. Google is funding summer camps to try to change that

On a sunny Monday afternoon in Oakland, AI4All alum Ananya Karthik gathered a few dozen girls to show them how to use the Deep Dream Generator program to fuse images together and create a unique piece of art. OAKLAND -- Through connections made at summer camp, high school students Aarvu Gupta and Lili Sun used artificial intelligence to create a drone program that aims to detect wildfires before they spread too far. Rebekah Agwunobi, a rising high school senior, learned enough to nab an internship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, working on using artificial intelligence to evaluate the court system, including collecting data on how judges set bail. Both projects stemmed from the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit AI4All, which will expand its outreach to young under-represented minorities and women with a $1 million grant from Google.org, the technology giant's philanthropic arm announced Friday. Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly commonplace in daily life, found in everything from Facebook's face detection feature for photos to Apple's iPhone X facial recognition.