News/Commentary

Obama attacks statistical models over alleged racism

November 10, 2023 | | Print Article

In a shocking statement concerning race, former President Barack Obama wildly attacked statistical machine learning because of possible racism.

He’s evidently worried that statistical models, i.e. artificial intelligence, could reach conclusions he doesn’t like.

Obama came to the conclusion last week, along with a panel of experts, that more has to be done to prevent artificial intelligence from harming or marginalizing people of color according to NBC News.

“The warning came during a panel discussion here at the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum, a yearly event for thought leaders to exchange ideas on how to create a more equitable society. This year’s forum was focused on the advances and challenges of AI,” NBC News reported.

The panel was titled, “Weighing AI and Human Progress.” Alondra Nelson, who is a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, claimed that not only can AI get it wrong, but it can also discriminate based on color.

“There’s already evidence that the tools sometimes discriminate and sort of amplify and exacerbate bias in life — big problems that we’re already trying to grapple with in society,” she asserted.

“Over the past two years, Nelson has been working within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, focusing on the equitable innovation of AI to include many people and voices, she said. Under the Biden administration, her team developed a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a guide to protect people from the threats of automated systems and includes insights from journalists, policymakers, researchers and other experts,” NBC News stated.

A paper was written on the subject of inherent AI bias back in 2021, so the accusation of discrimination has been brewing for a while now.

“A 2021 paper published by AI researchers revealed how large language models can reinforce racism and other forms of oppression. People in positions of privilege tend to be overrepresented in training data for language models, which incorporates encoded biases like racism, misogyny, and ableism,” NBC News wrote.

“Furthermore, just in the last year, multiple black people have said they were misidentified by facial recognition technology, which is based on AI, leading to unfair criminalization. In Georgia, 28-year-old Randall Reid said he was falsely arrested and jailed in 2022 after Louisiana authorities used facial recognition technology to secure an arrest warrant linking him to three men involved in theft. Noticeable physical differences, including a mole on his face, prompted a Jefferson Parish sheriff to rescind the warrant,” the progressive news outlet noted.

Facial recognition appears to have become a sticking point on the left due to race, but in reality, it reportedly makes mistakes regardless of color.

“Porcha Woodruff sued the city of Detroit for a false arrest in February. Her lawsuit accuses authorities of using an unreliable facial recognition match in a photo lineup linking her to a carjacking and robbery. Woodruff, who was eight months pregnant at the time, was charged and released on a $100,000 personal bond. The case was later dropped for ‘insufficient evidence,’ according to the lawsuit,” NBC News wrote.

Pew Research Center found that 20% of black adults who blame racial bias and unfair treatment in hiring practices claim that AI will make things worse.

Obama, who gave the keynote address at the event, stated that he was encouraged by President Biden’s executive order on AI. The former president provided advice on crafting the order which mandates broad federal oversight and investment in AI with an emphasis on diversity and equity. He admitted there were “some big risks associated with” it, however.

Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, posited that AI can potentially perpetuate human biases.

“That predictive AI is based on historical data,” he remarked. “So, if your historical data is biased, which it is — against people of color, against women, against the LGBTQ community — well guess what? Your AI is going to be biased. So, when we push these systems without fully understanding them, all we are doing is repeating history.”

Latest posts by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles