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Homophobia Is Easy To Encode in AI. One Researcher Built a Program To Change That.
Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
Artificial intelligence is now part of our everyday digital lives. We’ve all had the experience of searching for answers on a website or app and finding ourselves interacting with a chatbot. At best, the bot can help navigate us to what we’re after; at worst, we’re usually led to unhelpful information.
But imagine you’re a queer person, and the dialogue you have with an AI somehow discloses that part of your identity, and the chatbot you hit up to ask routine questions about a product or service replies with a deluge of hate speech.
Unfortunately, that isn’t as far-fetched a scenario as you might think. Artificial intelligence (AI) relies on information provided to it to create their decision-making models, which usually reflect the biases of the people creating them and the information it's being fed. If the people programming the network are mainly straight, cisgendered white men, then the AI is likely to reflect this.
As the use of AI continues to expand, some researchers are growing concerned that there aren’t enough safeguards in place to prevent systems from becoming inadvertently bigoted when interacting with users.
Katy Felkner, a graduate research assistant at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, is working on ways to improve natural language processing in AI systems so they can recognize queer-coded words without attaching a negative connotation to them.
At a press day for USC’s ISI Sept. 15, Felkner presented some of her work. One focus of hers is large language models, systems she said are the backbone of pretty much all modern language technologies,” including Siri, Alexa—even autocorrect. (Quick note: In the AI field, experts call different artificial intelligence systems “models”).
“Models pick up social biases from the training data, and there are some metrics out there for measuring different kinds of social biases in large language models, but none of them really worked well for homophobia and transphobia,” Felkner explained. “As a member of the queer community, I really wanted to work on making a benchmark that helped ensure that model generated text doesn't say hateful things about queer and trans people.”
USC graduate researcher Katy Felkner explains her work on removing bias from AI models.assets.rbl.ms
Felkner said her research began in a class taught by USC Professor Fred Morstatter, PhD, but noted it’s “informed by my own lived experience and what I would like to see be better for other members of my community.”
To train an AI model to recognize that queer terms aren’t dirty words, Felkner said she first had to build a benchmark that could help measure whether the AI system had encoded homophobia or transphobia. Nicknamed WinoQueer (after Stanford computer scientist Terry Winograd, a pioneer in the field of human-computer interaction design), the bias detection system tracks how often an AI model prefers straight sentences versus queer ones. An example, Felkner said, is if the AI model ignores the sentence “he and she held hands” but flags the phrase “she held hands with her” as an anomaly.
Between 73% and 77% of the time, Felkner said, the AI picks the more heteronormative outcome, “a sign that models tend to prefer or tend to think straight relationships are more common or more likely than gay relationships,” she noted.
To further train the AI, Felkner and her team collected a dataset of about 2.8 million tweets and over 90,000 news articles from 2015 through2021 that include examples of queer people talking about themselves or provide “mainstream coverage of queer issues.” She then began feeding it back to the AI models she was focused on. News articles helped, but weren’t as effective as Twitter content, Felkner said, because the AI learns best from hearing queer people describe their varied experiencesin their own words.
As anthropologist Mary Gray told Forbes last year, “We [LGBTQ people] are constantly remaking our communities. That’s our beauty; we constantly push what is possible. But AI does its best job when it has something static.”
By re-training the AI model, researchers can mitigate its biases and ultimately make it more effective at making decisions.
“When AI whittles us down to one identity. We can look at that and say, ‘No. I’m more than that’,” Gray added.
The consequences of an AI model including bias against queer people could be more severe than a Shopify bot potentially sending slurs, Felkner noted – it could also effect people’s livelihoods.
For example, Amazon scrapped a program in 2018 that used AI to identify top candidates by scanning their resumes. The problem was, the computer models almost only picked men.
“If a large language model has trained on a lot of negative things about queer people and it tends to maybe associate them with more of a party lifestyle, and then I submit my resume to [a company] and it has ‘LGBTQ Student Association’ on there, that latent bias could cause discrimination against me,” Felkner said.
The next steps for WinoQueer, Felkner said, are to test it against even larger AI models. Felkner also said tech companies using AI need to be aware of how implicit biases can affect those systems and be receptive to using programs like hers to check and refine them.
Most importantly, she said, tech firms need to have safeguards in place so that if an AI does start spewing hate speech, that speech doesn’t reach the human on the other end.
“We should be doing our best to devise models so that they don't produce hateful speech, but we should also be putting software and engineering guardrails around this so that if they do produce something hateful, it doesn't get out to the user,” Felkner said.
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Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
LA Tech Week Day Two: Social Highlights
03:04 PM | June 06, 2023
Evan Xie
L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.
Here's what people are saying about day two of L.A. Tech Week on social:
Coffee On Slauson never disappoints.
s/o @AustinLAC@AjayFresh@SlausonAndCo for a fantastic meetup. #TechWeek#LATechWeekpic.twitter.com/PwcNhedicY
— Kofi Ampadu (@TheKofiAmpadu) June 6, 2023
Top LA VCs just shared which startups they most regret passing on at #LATechWeek…@msuster: Scopely
Mark Mullen: Honey
Dana Settle: Honey, Trade Desk, Riot Games
William Hsu: Dollar Shave Club
Derek Norton: Manscape pic.twitter.com/8HCdufFDSH
— Ben Bergman (@thebenbergman) June 6, 2023
Day 2 of #LATechWeek! Always great to see @benlakoff who hosted an awesome @banklessvc brunch 🎉 pic.twitter.com/AAa3S7GRsN
— Melrose PR (@MelrosePR) June 6, 2023
"Excited to have been to be a part of #LATechWeek's official launch party hosted by @a16z. The event was incredibly well curated and it was energizing to see all of the activity happening across our ecosystem. Looking forward to the rest of the week!" - Partner Alex Lebow pic.twitter.com/PqiPavBYW6
— Daversa Partners (@DaversaPartners) June 6, 2023
Breakfast for day 2 of #LATechWeek with Watertower Ventures and the industry's top partners to hear from the emerging and emerged managers leading LA's premier venture capital funds.💥 pic.twitter.com/5ELK1dfagO
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 6, 2023
today was a good day ♻️ @GundersonLaw#PledgeLA#LATechWeek@Techweek_pic.twitter.com/zXtnPthwOP
— Slauson & Co. (@SlausonAndCo) June 6, 2023
Spent an hour hacking w/ Saba, Shai, Zach, Ed. They shipped https://t.co/D1lONbMean
This will be a lot fun + winner gets a meeting with @draper_u
Sign up ⬇️ #LATechWeekhttps://t.co/mz5jfKIGuQ
— Suffiyan Malik (@suffiyanmalikk) June 5, 2023
Back at the Bungalow for Watertower’s “Emerged vs Emerging Manager” panel for LA Tech Week with @dsettle@greycroftvc@msuster@upfrontvc@mucker@dereknorton
Takeaways:
- build long term relationships with LPs (spend 9-12 months getting to know them)
- FOMO era is over pic.twitter.com/8ncjyhe46c
— Katia Ameri (@KatiaAmeri) June 6, 2023
Great turnout for Women in Tech #meetup#LAtechweek#santamonica#junegloompic.twitter.com/yHpwmXPDq6
— Jane Richards Ⓥ (@greeneatz) June 6, 2023
Kicking off #LATechWeek@SpringPlace@JeromeFogelLA#CiarraPardo@RealMatthewLowe#web3#blockchain#AI#sports#healthcare#innovation#data#security@rihanna@fentybeauty@SavageXFenty#FONpic.twitter.com/SQFQjRWWIp
— Apothēka Systems Inc. (@ApothekaInc) June 5, 2023
Just wrapped up a great panel discussion on “Building Startups with Generative AI” at #LATechWeek@Google. During the panel I announced my upcoming book https://t.co/1hegV2QNYz — join the waitlist. @andrewchen@darian314, and Josh Gwyther! pic.twitter.com/EW41puleoG
— Clarence Wooten Jr. (@clarencewooten) June 6, 2023
Yesterday, @peterpham hosted a panel for LA #TechWeek with @Nasdaq focused on late-stage companies utilizing AI in marketing. Panelists included @MammothMedia's @bvatere and @LiquidDeath's Dan Murphy in a forward-thinking chat about the future of how we speak to customers. pic.twitter.com/uGCFslI5wf
— Science (@ScienceInc) June 6, 2023
Enjoying the sun and good vibes at @TechWeek_#LA! Excited to co-host brunch and a panel with @comcastventures & @discord about the intersection of #AI, #gaming & #entertainment. #LATechWeek#Xbox#MiniFund#VCpic.twitter.com/mwHv4MIKjL
— M12 - Microsoft's Venture Fund (@M12vc) June 6, 2023
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LA Tech Week Is Back! Here Are the Events We're Watching
04:07 PM | June 05, 2023
Evan Xie
This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.
MONDAY
LA Hardtech: Local Talent Meets CEOs: Want to see robots in action? This hardtech event will showcase product demos and feature conversations about all things aircrafts, satellites, electric vehicles, robots and medical devices. June 5 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in El Segundo.
Technology and Storytelling for Social Good: LA2050 and Goldhirsh Foundation president Tara Roth will moderate a panel featuring Alexis Cabrera of 9 Dots, Laura Gonzalez of Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), Sabra Williams of Creative Acts, and Paul Lanctot of The Debt Collective. Tickets are sold out, but stay tuned for dot.LA’s coverage of how technology can advance social good.
TUESDAY
Building a Startup Using Generative AI: As AI takes over the tech space, more startups are eyeing the burgeoning tool. Google’s west coast Head of VC and Startup Partnerships Alexandra Dumas will moderate a panel focused on how startups can best utilize AI. June 6 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Venice.
AI &Music: The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am will join Google AI’s K Allado-McDowell, Never Before Heard Sounds’ Parag Mital and SOMMS.ai’s Matthew Adell to discuss how AI is changing music composition and production. June 6 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Hollywood.
BLCK VC + Diversity VC: Navigating the Capital Landscape Panel: Two VCs focused on helping people of color grow their investing careers, BLCK VC and Diversity VC, will host a panel discussion on how diverse fund managers and founders can secure funding. June 6 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in West L.A.
Female Founders: Female Founders: Planning. Pivoting. Profiting: Female entrepreneurs—including Mia Pokriefka of Huxly, Anjali Kundra of Partender, Sunny Wu of LE ORA and Montré Moore of AMP Beauty LA—will discuss how women can set their businesses up for success. June 6 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Fairfax.
LA #TechWeek VC Kickoff Party: dot.LA executive chairman Spencer Rascoff’s venture fund 75 & Sunny is partnering with VC firm Crosscut to launch L.A. Tech week with music, drinks and networking. June 6 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in Pacific Palisades.
WEDNESDAY
SUPERCHARGE LA: Access to Capital & Cocktails: Join dot.LA for a night of networking and live music with a set by renowned artist, DJ, producer, and photographer D-Nice. In addition, LA Chargers running back Austin Ekeler will be joined by Grammy award winning artist Miguel and other leaders from LA venture capital to discuss how founders can increase their funding. June 7 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Santa Monica.
Hollywood Dream: Star in 3D Movie with Your Avatar, Rendered from Script with PentoPix: Storytellers from PentoPix, an AI video generator, will share their thoughts on how the new technology can change the film production process. Attendees can insert their own 3D avatar into a story created for the event. June 7 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Santa Monica.
THURSDAY
Aerospace Meets Climate Tech: Learn more about how climate tech is transforming the aerospace industry at this panel featuring the industry’s founders and investors. Get a look at how Arc Boats made an electric sport boat, tour the company’s production floor and hear from its team of former rocket scientists. June 8 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Los Angeles.
Marketing in the Age of AI: What Startups & Creatives Need to Know About the Changing Creative Industry: Learn how brand strategists are utilizing AI to upend the creative process while still reaching audiences. Software platforms Melodize.ai and Davant Systems and advertising platform Trade Secret will dive into AI-generated short-form videos and images. June 8 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Playa Vista.
Content Capital: Where Investors Meet Creators: Techstars Managing Director Melissa Pegus will discuss how the next generation of the creator economy can find inspiration—and funding. June 8 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Santa Monica.
FRIDAY
Sports in LA: Investing, Founding and Growing: Sports PR agency Athlete Strategies will host an event featuring founders, VCs and athletes sharing industry investment opportunities and trends. June 9 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Santa Monica.
Moonshot Thinking & Radical Solutions: Google and “X”—an innovation lab within Alphabet dedicated to building technology that will improve people’s lives—will discuss setting goals, fostering breakthroughs and redefining humanity. June 9 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Playa Vista.
The Closeout Event by Mantis VC and M13: Wrap up L.A. Tech Week with a night of networking. Join founders, VCs and investors at an event put on by The Chainsmokers’ Mantis VC and M13. June 9 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Santa Monica.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
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