A.I. Has Become So Human, Its Become Ridiculously Racist

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Coming off an epic night of Hip-Hop, I knew nothing could break my stride this morning (other than a slight hangover). That is until I came across another of A.I.’s shortcomings in its ability to separate itself from our own human-made racial and gender bias.

My stride took a blow following a late night and into the early morning three-hour Hip-Hop concert featuring East Oakland, California’s underground rap stars, “Souls of Mischief”. A rap group that cemented its legacy in 1993 with the classic song, “93 ‘Til Infinity”. A song that was more recently featured in an instrumental version in a 2017 NBA Playoffs Gatorade television commercial promoting Gatorade Flow and featuring the at that time Indiana Pacers star forward, Paul George.

All of this led me to start today researching a future edition to this newsletter exploring Hip-Hop’s connection to gaming. Using the aid of Google’s Bard A.I. offering, I asked Bard to provide its perspective on Hip-Hop’s and Gaming’s connections and it proceeded to provide that both had Black origins including Gaming having a number of Black characters including one each in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Now I consider myself a casual gamer and I played my fair share of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong in my day, but I could not cramp my brain to recall any Black characters in either one of those classic arcade games. So I asked Bard who these Black characters were and it provided this:

“There are no black characters in the original Pac-Man or Donkey Kong games. However, there have been some black characters featured in later versions or spin-offs of these games.

For example, the 2005 game Pac-Man World 2 features a black character named Spooky, who is a ghost that Pac-Man can eat to gain special powers. The 2018 game Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze features a black character named Funky Kong, who is a playable character who can help Donkey Kong and his friends navigate the game's levels.

It is important to note that the absence of black characters in the original Pac-Man and Donkey Kong games does not necessarily mean that the games are racist. The games were created in a time when there were fewer black characters in video games overall. However, it is also true that the lack of black representation in these games can be seen as a missed opportunity.

In recent years, there has been a growing movement to increase the representation of black characters in video games. This is a positive trend, and it is important to continue to make progress in this area.”

So Bard implicated two characters, “Spooky” from Pac-Man and “Funky Kong” as being “Black”. You can see their pics above and decide for yourself. Perhaps Funky was inspired by a George Clinton/Funkadelic song, but it is still a stretch to confuse an ape and a villain who looks oddly similar to another villain in Zurg from Disney's "Toy Story".

So what this all means is Bard is like a child acting out on the wide body of information it has been given. It is truly a product of its (our) environment. There have been numerous other A.I. generated gender and racial bias instances for years per the sampling of the below articles on the matter:

https://time.com/5520558/artificial-intelligence-racial-gender-bias/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/arts/design/black-artists-bias-ai.html

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/aug/08/rise-of-the-racist-robots-how-ai-is-learning-all-our-worst-impulses

Bard, like ChatGPT, is built on a Large Language Model, which means it is a conversational AI trained to be smart on a massive amount of text data. Net, as the GIGO saying goes “garbage in, garbage out”. These LLMs are learning our bad habits and in this case racial bias.

It was unfortunate this happened given I actually prefer using Bard to ChatGPT and I am paying for ChatGPT. The reason is Bard’s access to current data and its integration into Google’s ecosystem. For example, I can ask Bard to build a chart based on data and after building the chart within its interface, it provides an option to add the chart to Google’s version of Microsoft Excel in Google Sheets. Finally, Bard also provides the option to provide instant feedback via a thumbs up or thumbs down on responses. Needless to say, I gave this one the thumbs down and provided my feedback.

We know trying to correct A.I.’s generative bias does not end with a thumbs down. It begins with we as humans continuing to decide how to treat one another and recognize our own bias and how it impacts those around us from the impressionable youth to the LLM A.I. If we can’t reel in and accept and control our own bias then how will we do the same for A.I? And you guessed it. I asked A.I. that very question, posing it to both Bard and ChatGPT and both spit out similar responses peppered with a litany of steps we as humans can take from education to diversity in the workplace, “help to ensure that AI systems are fair and equitable for everyone.”

I have decided to continue to be an optimist here and focus first on correcting my own biases and helping others with theirs. In addition, these LLMs are learning systems that improve over time and if I am a betting person, I would say A.I. beats us humans in correcting its own bias faster and better. Otherwise, we will all be here in another thirty years singing a similar-sounding song to one I heard last night, but instead about race and gender bias being something that will go on for 2053 ‘til infinity.

#Soulsofmischief #AI #MidJourney #Hiphop #Genderbias #racialbias