Will A.I. empower Black folks and unleash inclusive progress? Umm. maybe!
Episode 26Play
Clueless about what Artificial Intelligence is and what it is actually used for, Kevin “Boss” Ross sets out to understand AI through its benefits as well as shortcomings for Black Americans. His findings just may surprise you.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION BELOW:
You are now listening to TheGrios black podcast network, black culture amplified.
Hi, I’m Kevin Ross and this is The Podcast. Will A.I. Empower Black Folks And Unleash Inclusive Progress? Umm. Maybe! artificial intelligence or A.I. is touted as being revolutionary. Opening new doors to innovation.
Among the many beneficiaries of A.I.s advancement are Black Americans who have increasingly embraced this technology to empower themselves in various fields. Wait, Boss Ross why are you suddenly talking like you’re a computer? Good question.
I was having a discussion with my sons the other day about A.I. in terms of their careers and suddenly realized I had absolutely no clue about A.I. , what it does and its implications on society. So I decided I’m, I’m gonna do the first of what hopefully will be many podcasts about artificial intelligence.
Now I’m old school, so my initial step was getting a clear definition. Simply stated artificial intelligence taps into the theory and development of machines or software as opposed to the intelligence of say humans, even animals,
visual perception, speech recognition, decision making, translating languages, tasks such as these normally require a person, right? Well, apparently not so much.
See A.I. combines all the data you could possibly find through web search engines such as Google, recommendation systems like youtube and Netflix, speech from Siri and Alexa, even creative tools including something called chat GPT.
In fact, much of the information I found out about A.I. came from the free chat GPT app I downloaded on my iphone. Launched in November of actually last year chat GPT or chat generative pre-trained transformer. Allows you to create as well as navigate any conversation you want with a designated length, format, style and level of detail.
We’re talking whether it’s a homework assignment, a speech, business proposal, contract, book, script idea for a movie or TV series,a Will, I mean, there are just endless possibilities. And check this out. Just the chat GPT app alone is projected to reach $1 billion in valuation by 2024.
As such businesses that integrate this app into their operations will undoubtedly have a significant advantage over their competitors
now because my podcast initiates on TheGrio. I wanted to find out the diverse applications of A.I. within the black community.
So what I did was I typed that message into the chat GPT app and I must say it, I was beyond impressed with how it highlighted literally in seconds A.I.’s impact on African Americans in several important areas.
Pertaining to education, it talked about how A.I. can identify individual students, strengths and weaknesses then provide targeted support to bridge gaps in learning and improve academic outcomes. I thought, Ok, that’s pretty cool. The data acknowledged Black health care disparities which A.I. can address by enhancing diagnostic accuracy, predicting disease patterns unique to black people and enabling personalized treatments.
Turns out through A.I. powered telemedicine platforms, barriers to medical assistance, especially in underserved areas can be substantially reduced. You with me?
Black entrepreneurs utilizing A.I. can streamline operations and optimize their marketing strategies and analyze customer preferences because A.I. driven credit assessments tend to be less reliant on traditional credit histories. Blacks should also expect to see fairer loan practices and access to financial services as well. The hits just keep on coming you wanna talk criminal justice reform.
Improving public safety while minimizing racial profiling is apparently another way A.I. can be an ally for African Americans A.I is also expected to play an expanded role in improving black representation in media, whether it’s A.I generated music, artwork, fashion or storytelling. Promoting inclusivity in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes in these fields is without question, something to be excited about. So I just gave you all these positive encouraging outcomes. Despite the potential, however there are risks and ethical concerns associated with A.I.
See these A.I. algorithms are capable of perpetuating harmful stereotypes as well due to biased training, data or biased human inputs. These systems for example, receive data which can often reflect existing societal prejudices.
The data used to train A.I. models are biased, it’s just gonna amplify those biases. Take subjective versus objective processes used in criminal justice systems. We can actually end up with higher rates of false positive identification and ultimately unjust sentencing for African Americans.
It’s actually been documented how facial recognition algorithms have difficulty detecting black faces along with A.I. robots trained on billions of images consistently identifying women as homemakers and people of color
as criminals or janitors. A.I. has also raised concerns about privacy and surveillance and as technology automates certain tasks, job displacement for black folks is real, potentially widening the existing digital divide.
Without proper support and retraining programs blacks will continue to struggle in a tech driven job market. A.I. content could also limit the visibility of say black artists work replicate and replace them or simply just promote mainstream content thereby contributing to further underrepresentation.
Which is why it’s critical that collaboration between A.I. developers, content creators and industry stakeholders is essential to facilitate meaningful discussion that result in equitable representation and opportunities.
See it’s on each of us to ensure that these algorithms are free from bias and that diversity exists within the A.I. development community. Which means black elected officials, black influencers, historically, black colleges and universities, uh tech organizations that serve as a pipeline to black computer science and engineering students among others must be at the vanguard of all this A.I. development.
According to one recent research undertaken by IBM, the data said more than one in three private businesses used A.I. technologies in 2022 with 42% currently considering incorporating it.
And government agencies are not far behind. Ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are. Artificial intelligence is rewriting how we live, how we work, how we play, how we exist. It also has frankly the capability to be racist, unintentional or otherwise.
If we’re to avoid the same past mistakes and lapses in judgment humans have made, let’s just make sure A.I. is grinding for everyone and the time to do that folks is now right now.
I’m Kevin Ross and this is The Podcast powered by TheGrio. Follow me @IamBossRoss on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
