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Recode Daily

AI’s anti-Muslim bias problem

Recode Daily

Recode

Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2021

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Artificial intelligence is often thought of as an efficient and objective tool for everyday tasks. But a lot of AI systems show signs of racism and discrimination, the impacts of which can be detrimental. Vox’s Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel) explains why one particular AI system is showing anti-Muslim bias. References: Read Sigal’s story on Vox.com here. Enjoyed this episode? Rate Recode Daily ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. What do you want to learn about on Recode Daily? Send your requests and questions to recodedaily@recode.net. We read every email! Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Recode Daily by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This episode was made by: Host: Adam Clark Estes (@adamclarkestes) Producer: Alan Rodriguez Espinoza (@ardzes) Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey Support Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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the label. Artificial intelligence has transformed our relationship with

0:41.4

technology. It can find the fastest route on a road trip, or spotter friends' faces and

0:46.4

photos. It can also help employers sift through thousands of resumes or retailers identify

0:51.4

shoplifters. But even with these upsides, there's a big problem with AI. The technology

0:57.6

relies on humans to learn what to do, and humans, as we know, can be pretty racist. So time

1:03.9

and time again, we see human biases and discrimination show up in the artificially

1:08.2

intelligent software we design. For example, GPT-3. This is a revolutionary AI language model

1:16.0

that can generate text. But as researchers have learned, GPT-3 also has a big Islamophobia

1:22.2

problem. Vox's Segal Samuel has been talking with the researchers that spotted the issue,

1:31.5

and she's here to tell us more. Hi Segal. Hey, nice to be here with you.

1:36.3

So tell us about GPT-3. What is it used for? So GPT-3 is an AI language model that is

1:44.0

meant to generate text. So basically, you can type in a prompt, like a few words or a sentence,

1:50.6

and then it'll auto-complete for you. It'll start writing the next sentence or two or three

1:57.2

based on what it plausibly thinks a human would respond. And that can be used for creative

2:03.8

writing. It can be used for writing, marketing copy, a whole bunch of things.

2:08.9

And how exactly does GPT-3 do that? So GPT-3 is trained on a ton of data, basically researchers

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