Experts claim AI has a racism epidemic but resolving it is difficult.

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Kirti Pathak
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Artificial Intelligence

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The N-word was recently removed from a product description of a black-colored action figure by Amazon, which admitted to media that its protections failed to filter out the derogatory slur.

The multibillion-dollar corporation's gatekeeping often failed to prevent the use of the same word in product descriptions for a do-rag and a shower curtain.

Experts told media that the Chinese company selling the merchandise had no idea what the English description meant because the material was created by an artificial intelligence (AI) language program.

Experts in the field of artificial intelligence claim it's one of an increasing number of cases where real-world AI systems produce discriminatory and biased outcomes.

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"AI has a race epidemic," said Mutale Nkonde, a former journalist and technology policy analyst who runs the non-profit AI For the People in the United States, which seeks to end Black people's underrepresentation in the technology field.

The word slipped through Amazon's protections that hold offensive words off the net, according to an emailed statement to the media channel. Teams that track product descriptions are among the protections.

"We regret the mistake," Amazon said in a tweet, adding that the problem has since been resolved.

However, there are other examples of AI-based language programs that provide N-word translations online.

The N-word is suggested as a translation alternative for the Chinese characters for "Black male" on Baidu, China's top search engine.

According to experts, these AI language programs generate word associations and connections based on vast quantities of unfiltered data fed to them from the internet, using incredibly complex computations.

 

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