An explosion of interest in AI from businesses and consumers has kicked off an arms race between Google and its archrival Microsoft to develop and sell AI tools and put the tech into existing products, from Google Search to Microsoft Word. The boom was triggered by OpenAI, a much smaller company, which released its ChatGPT chatbot in November, astonishing the world with its ability to conduct cogent conversations, pass professional exams and write computer code. Experts attribute OpenAI's success in part to its use of human testers and trainers to refine the bot and teach it to be less offensive and more interesting than previous versions of the technology.

Contractors working for Google reportedly targeted homeless people with "dark skin" to help train a facial recognition system. As reported by our sister publication AI News, facial recognition algorithms have well-documented problems when it comes to identifying people of colour. Part of the reason for the disparity is that most data sets for training algorithms have little diversity. Any responsible tech company will want to ensure their facial recognition technologies are equally accurate across society before they're further deployed in areas such as law enforcement; which even some police have voiced concerns may lead to increased bias. However, it seems in a bid to prevent bias with its own facial recognition algorithms, Google has walked right into another controversy.