On Tuesday, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released executive order guidance explaining how schools' use of artificial intelligence (AI) can discriminate against minority and transgender students, making them the subject of federal investigation. There is a “high” possibility that it will be targeted.
President Biden signs Executive Order 14110 Last year, it directed the Department of Education to provide resources, policies and guidance on AI in schools to ensure the responsible and non-discriminatory use of AI systems “including the impact that AI systems have on vulnerable and underserved communities.” mandated to develop.
“The use of AI in schools for educational and school safety purposes is increasing, and the ability of AI to operate at scale may create or contribute to discrimination.” The Department for Education guidance states: “This resource provides information about federal civil rights laws in OCR’s jurisdiction and includes examples of the types of incidents that, depending on the facts and circumstances, may provide sufficient cause for OCR to initiate an investigation. ”
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The first seven examples provided in the guidance are scenarios in which AI could potentially deny benefits or unfairly single out or exclude students based on race, color, or national origin. It was.
In one scenario, a plagiarism checker run using a generative AI that “shows high error rates when evaluating essays written by non-native English speakers” was exposed as racist without the teacher’s knowledge. It has been suggested that it may be. Nevertheless, if a school continues to use racist plagiarism checkers after complaints from students or parents, the guidance says it is “likely” to result in a federal civil rights investigation. has been done.
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Another example suggests that schools using AI to determine appropriate disciplinary procedures for students may also be exhibiting racial bias.
Chicago public school teachers opened up about the challenges they faced in the classroom when communicating with immigrant students. (Getty Images)
“Significant racial disparities continue to exist in the application of student discipline in schools, with black students being punished more frequently and harshly than similarly situated students of other races. ”, the guidance says. “As a result, the historical school discipline data that this software relies on reflects the discriminatory discipline practices of that school.”
Other sections of the guidance touch on how AI could lead to sex discrimination, one example of which is the potential for AI to discriminate against students who do not conform to traditional gender norms. It details a scenario in which there is. In this scenario, a school that uses facial recognition software to check students' attendance at school “complies with the technology's assumptions about how girls and boys should look based on the school's assigned gender.” This suggests that students may be inappropriately flagged as a security risk because they are not compliant. record. ”
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The guidance states that students who are incorrectly reported may become “embarrassed and miss class time” and continue to use the screening software anyway, even though administrators are “aware of the problem.” If so, there will likely be a Title IX violation and an investigation by civil rights officers.
This photo illustration created in Washington DC shows an AI image generator in front of an image of a school bus.
Challenging discrimination within AI has been a focus of the Biden administration, with top leaders at the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission working on it. Pledged in April last year It says it will begin using existing federal civil rights and consumer protection laws to crack down on discriminatory AI systems.
Those calls from leaders within the Biden administration preceded the president's call. Executive Order October 2023 It mandates a range of efforts to eradicate discrimination in AI, including guidance released by the Department of Education on Tuesday.
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President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will nominate former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon to be the next secretary of the Department of Education.
The Department of Education did not provide any on-the-record comment to Fox News Digital prior to publication of this article.
