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Tech industry tried reducing AI's pervasive bias. Now Trump wants to end its 'woke AI' efforts
Artificial intelligence technology that works well for the world’s billions of people of color was a business imperative for Google when the company asked sociologist Ellis Monk to help make its AI products more inclusive.
Past efforts to “advance equity” in AI development and curb the production of “harmful and biased outputs” are a target of investigation, according to subpoenas sent to Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and 10 other tech companies last month by the House Judiciary Committee. Google adopted a color scale invented by Monk that improved how its AI image tools portray the diversity of human skin tones, replacing a decades-old standard originally designed for doctors treating white dermatology patients. While he doesn’t believe that his Monk Skin Tone Scale is threatened because it’s already baked into dozens of products at Google and elsewhere — including camera phones, video games, AI image generators — he and other researchers worry that the new mood is chilling future initiatives and funding to make technology work better for everyone.
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