The University of Washington’s recent study on Stable Diffusion, a popular AI image generator, reveals concerning biases in its algorithm. The research, led by doctoral student Sourojit Ghosh and assistant professor Aylin Caliskan, was presented at the 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing and published on the pre-print server arXiv. The Three Key Issues The report picked up on three key issues and concerns surrounding Stable Diffusion, including gender and racial stereotypes, geographic stereotyping, and the sexualization of women of color. Gender and Racial Stereotypes The AI
Anguilla, an internally self-governing overseas territory of the UK, is making £3 million ($3.8M) per month from its .ai domain. Anguilla, the British territory in the Caribbean, has fewer than 20,000 people on the island. However, its code top-level domain (ccTLD) is wanted by many for AI startups. “I knew way back that .ai could end up being used for AI, that it could be valuable someday. But it was a question of when right?” Vincent Cate, president at DataHaven.Net Ltd, which handles sales of the .ai domain for the
Rite Aid will be banned from using AI-powered facial recognition technology for five years as it disproportionately impacts people of color. The US pharmacy chain deployed AI-based facial recognition technology from 2012 to 2020 to identify shoplifters. However, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against the company. Rite Aid’s Facial Recognition Tech According to the FTC, Rite Aid has used facial recognition technology in hundreds of its retail pharmacy locations to identify patrons previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior. The technology captured images of all
Latimer, the innovative AI platform named after the African-American inventor Lewis Latimer, has taken a significant step towards making generative AI more inclusive and historically accurate. The platform announced an exclusive content license agreement with the New York Amsterdam News, one of the nation’s most influential and oldest continuously published Black newspapers. Historically Accurate Training Data Amsterdam News has been a pioneering force in Black journalism since 1909. The newspaper is also known for its innovative approaches and significant milestones, such as being the first Black newspaper unionized in all departments.
London-based fintech startup Jenesys AI has secured $1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round. Founded in late 2022 by Nicolai Thomson and Dr Tosin Dairo, Jenesys elevates the role of bookkeepers and accountants with a conversational AI named “Jack”. The investment round was led by Twin Path Ventures, with contributions from Fuel Ventures, Antler, Hatcher+ in Singapore, and seasoned angel investors from the US and UK. Meet Jack: The conversational AI Jenesys AI’s flagship product is “Jack,” a conversational AI designed to support finance teams. Integrated with platforms like Slack
Twin Health has secured $50 million in funding for its AI-driven personalized healthcare tech that aims to prevent and reverse chronic health diseases like diabetes. Temasek led the Series D funding round with the participation of existing investors ICONIQ Growth, Sofina, Peak XV, and Helena. Twin Health was co-founded in 2018 by Jahangir Mohammed (CEO), also the founder of Jasper and Kineto Wireless, and Terry Poon (CTO). A whole-body digital twin Central to Twin Health’s mission is the Whole Body Digital Twin™ – an innovative, AI-driven healthcare platform that composes
Women with dark skin tones are getting more screen time and speaking time in US scripted television, a new study using advanced AI models has revealed. Despite improvements over the past 12 years, the study found that men with light skin tones still get the most screen and speaking time. See It, Be It See It, Be It: What Families Are Seeing on TV is a new study that analyzes trends in the screen and speaking time of the visually presenting attributes of characters. This includes gender, skin tone, and
CB Insights released its latest list of the world’s most promising startups, including a number of companies founded by people of color. CB Insights collected the company’s investors, headcount growth, and commercial relationships to identify 345 of the most promising private startups from their database of 1 million companies. The industries include fintech, AI, insurtech, generative AI, and retail tech. We have compiled a list of some people of color-owned startups featured. Airbase – Thejo Kote Thejo Kote founded Airbase in 2017 and has been its CEO since then. Airbase develops a modern
Vennard Wright is reinvesting profits into PerVista, an AI-powered gun detection technology to reduce gun violence. Wright founded Wave Welcome – an IT management company – in 2020 to deliver technology and cybersecurity services that empower dynamic organizations. It makes money from managing internal IT systems of businesses, universities, and government organizations, then invests profits into its own side projects. Wave Welcome is now working on a gun detection tech project, PerVista. Gun Detection Tech PerVista recognizes the increasing importance of digital security and built a solution to consolidate essential
Nicki Minaj fans, Barbz, have created an AI kingdom, Gag City, ahead of the release of the artist’s Pink Friday 2 album. The impressive pink creations have been trending across social media. Barbz turn to AI Gag City is an AI-generated kingdom created by Barbz. The pink alternative universe’s name is a wordplay for “gagged,” a slang to describe something amazing or stunning. After Nicki shared the cover art on her album – with her standing on a pink subway in a pink-tinted city – fans came up with the
