Giving Compass' Take:

• Schools need to address the challenge of bias in artificial intelligence as more education technology appears in the classroom. 

• The author recommends that diversifying the pool of tech creators involved in AI development could help curb biases. How can donors support this idea? 

• Read about why AI needs to reflect society's diversity to help solve social problems. 

Artificial intelligence has transformed almost every aspect of our lives, from driverless cars to Siri, and soon, education will be no different. The automation of a school or university’s administrative tasks and customization of student curricula is not only possible, but imminent. The goal is for our computers to make humanlike judgments and perform tasks to make educators’ lives easier, but if we’re not careful, these machines will replicate our racism, too.

Kids from Black and Latino or Hispanic communities—who are often already on the wrong side of the digital divide—will face greater inequalities if we go too far toward digitizing education without considering how to check the inherent biases of the (mostly white) developers who create AI systems. AI is only as good as the information and values of the programmers who design it, and their biases can ultimately lead to both flaws in the technology and amplified biases in the real world.

This was the topic at the recent conference “Where Does Artificial Intelligence Fit in the Classroom?”, put on by the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the think tank WISE and the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at Teachers College, and hosted by Columbia University.

While many argue that the efficiencies of AI can level the playing field in classrooms, we need more due diligence and intellectual exploration before we deploy the technology to schools. Systemic racism and discrimination are already embedded in our educational systems. Developers must intentionally build AI systems through a lens of racial equity if the technology is going to disrupt the status quo.

We must diversify the pool of technology creators to incorporate people of color in all aspects of AI development, while continuing to train teachers on its proper usage and building in regulations to punish discrimination in its application.

Read the full article about AI in schools by Andre M. Perry and Nicol Turner-Lee at Brookings.