A high school athletic director in Baltimore has been accused of using AI to impersonate a principal on an audio recording that included racist and antisemitic comments, authorities said on Thursday. The principal was placed on leave and had police outside his home after he received hate-filled messages and death threats over the fake recoridng. What Happened? Dazhon Darien, a 31-year-old high school athletic director in Maryland, reportedly created the AI audio recording to retaliate against Pikesville High School’s principal Eric Eisworth. Eisworth was investigating Darien over allegations that he
Venita Cooper and Vincent Sanders have created an AI-powered sneaker resale price-prediction startup – Arbit. According to their website, Arbit is the only price prediction model designed to empower sneaker buyers to get fair prices in the resell market. They collect real-time prices from trusted sites, providing pricing insights and trend analysis that allows users to shop prices on one app. Arbit’s Journey Cooper’s passion for sneaker culture began in 2019 when she opened Silhouette Sneakers and Art in Tulsa, which attracted attention from Brian Brackeen in 2021. After more than four years in the business, Cooper announced
Black-owned AI analytics platform AI Squared has announced a $13.8 million Series A funding round led by Ansa Capital with participation from Latimer Ventures, NEA and Ridgeline. AI Squared As investments in AI increase, data science teams in businesses and governments are looking to implement AI models that can utilize more value from their data to improve decision-making. AI Squared, founded in 2019 by Benjamin Harvey, PhD, helps organizations deliver data and AI insights into their business applications. The company estimates that up to 90% of AI models enterprises develop do not make it
Digital health startup Acclinate has partnered with Quilt.AI to enhance its Black maternal health initiatives through AI and cultural understanding. Increasing Culturally Competent Healthcare Professionals Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Acclinate is a digital health startup focused on improving health equity through technology and community engagement, particularly within communities of color. Thanks to Acclinate’s NOWINCLUDED community platform, significant strides have been made in understanding the healthcare needs of Black mothers over the past year. Data from the Mommy Listening
MyFiLi is a new AI-powered edtech platform designed to transform how families, schools, and nonprofits engage with financial literacy. The Urgent Need for Financial Literacy Currently, consumer credit card debt in the U.S. has hit an all-time high of $1.79 trillion, and savings account balances average just $4,521. MyFiLi.com addresses this gap by providing tools and knowledge that help users navigate the complex nature of financial management. According to BlackNews, Founder and CEO Joseph Green‘s mission is to empower everyone to develop a healthy relationship with money. “By making financial literacy education accessible,
Robert F. Smith’s Vista Equity Partners has raised over $20 billion for its latest fund, making it the largest in its history. This new fund, known as the eighth flagship fund, passes the previous record of $17 billion raised in 2019. Embracing AI for Strategic Growth Vista Equity Partners, known for its investments in technology companies, will leverage AI to improve efficiency and performance across the firm and its portfolio companies. “You will also hear more about how we have adopted generative artificial intelligence not just as a tool but as
Parham Aarabi, a University of Toronto researcher, has developed an AI tool, named PRE, that could change how e-commerce sites cater to users with color vision deficiencies. AI-Powered Solutions for Improved Web Navigation “Around 8% to 10% of the population has a type of color-blindness,” said Aarabi according to Texh Xplore. “I wanted to see how this might impact web navigation.” Aarabi’s AI model simulates the browsing behaviors of virtual users, tracking interactions like page pauses, cart additions, and responses to discounts. The tool’s insights reveal that while colorful images typically attract users, those with color blindness respond differently, favoring monochrome imagery. By
In the US, African American women face higher mortality rates from major diseases like heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes compared to other demographics. These disparities are often due to systemic biases in healthcare, which can diminish or underestimate the pain and symptoms experienced by these women. The Promise of Predictive Healthcare in Personalized Medicine Predictive healthcare, however, marks an evolution in medical treatment, moving away from a generalized approach to a more individualized strategy. This approach uses advanced predictive analytics, which allows healthcare providers to identify potential health risks early and
Research has shown that Black adults experience higher rates of sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, insomnia, and irregular sleep patterns, more frequently than other demographic groups. Dr. Ivor Horn, Google’s Chief Health Equity Officer, is at the forefront of addressing these health disparities using AI. Her role mainly involves bridging healthcare gaps by using technology to enhance healthcare equity, particularly for marginalized communities. Sleep Disorders With Black People Factors contributing to less sleep among Black individuals include location, environmental noise, light pollution, and broader socio-economic issues such as stress and racial discrimination.
Researchers are improving detection algorithms to make them fairer and more accurate by incorporating greater demographic diversity, according to The Conversation. Deepfakes, synthetic media in which a person’s likeness is replaced with someone else’s without consent, are rapidly advancing. From realistic representations of celebrities in compromising situations to false statements by political leaders, technology poses a significant threat to trust and truth in digital media. As these manipulations become harder to detect, the want to develop tools to disprove them grows. Bias in Detection Algorithms Typically, deepfake detection systems rely
