Oh dear... AI models used to flag hate speech online are, er, racist against black people

The internet is filled with trolls spewing hate speech, but machine learning algorithms can't help us clean up the mess. A paper from computer scientists from the University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, found that machines were more likely to flag tweets from black people than white people as offensive. It all boils down to the subtle differences in language. African-American English (AAE), often spoken in urban communities, is peppered with racial slang and profanities. But even if they contain what appear to be offensive words, the message itself often isn't abusive.