The "whiteness" of artificial intelligence (AI) removes people of colour from the way humanity thinks about its technology-enhanced future, researchers argue. University of Cambridge experts suggest current portrayals and stereotypes about AI risk creating a "racially homogenous" workforce of aspiring technologists, creating machines with bias baked into their algorithms. The scientists say cultural depictions of AI as white need to be challenged, as they do not offer a "post-racial" future but rather one from which people of colour are simply erased. According to the researchers from Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), like other science fiction tropes, AI has always reflected racial thinking in society. In the study published in the Philosophy and Technology journal, they argue there is a long tradition of racial stereotypes when it comes to extraterrestrials – from the "orientalised" alien of Ming the Merciless to the Caribbean caricature of Jar Jar Binks.

All across the world, small projects demonstrating driverless buses and shuttles are cropping up: Las Vegas, Minnesota, Austin, Bavaria, Henan Province in China, Victoria in Australia. City governments are studying their implementation, too, from Toronto to Orlando to Ohio. And last week, the Federal Transit Administration of the Department of Transportation issued a "request for comments" on the topic of "Removing Barriers to Transit-Bus Automation." The document is fully in line with the approach that federal and state regulators have taken, which has promoted the adoption of autonomous vehicle technology as quickly as possible. Because most crashes are caused by human mistakes--and those crashes kill more than 30,000 Americans per year--self-driving-car proponents believe that the machines will eventually create much, much safer roads.