This week online: biased AI and the WebXR Developer Summit
The WebXR Developer Summit happened this week! Catch recordings of the morning and afternoon sessions, with conversation on building spatial communities, virtual museums, and best practices on the Youtube channel here.
Insurance company Lemonade published a thread detailing their use of artificial intelligence to detect fraud in user insurance claims, to general alarm and mass quote tweeting. Critics discussed the potential racism and ableism at play and related the practice to phrenology. The company has since released a statement.
Ethics in AI are a constant topic of discussion. In addition to Lemonade, many have been discussing Wall Street Journal’s reporting on a flaw in Twitter’s photo crop algorithm. The article highlights the ethics team’s response to racism in the algorithm, drawing a lot on the work of Rumman Chowdhury. However, while her words are present, her image is not. WSJ neglected to include her headshot in the piece but posted the images of two white men involved in the project.
This is part of a larger discussion of diversity and the erasure of women of color innovating in these spaces.
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