AI Literacy at PCC
Algorithmic Bias Guide
For more resources on algorithmic bias, see PCC Librarian Rachel Bridgewater's excellent research guide on the subject.
Noteworthy podcast episodes
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Latanya Sweeney On Shaping Technology to Human PurposeIn this episode of On Being, Dr. Latanya Sweeney discusses bias in AI and offers a hopeful view of how AI could benefit society.
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“Algorithms of Oppression” - Dr. Safiya Noble on the embedded misogyny and racism of search enginesIn this episode of Inflection Point, Dr. Safiya Noble discusses her work on algorithmic bias, which grew out of a Google search for the term "black girls" and the racist and sexist search results she found.
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Cathy O'Neil: Do Algorithms Perpetuate Human Bias?On the TED Radio Hour, mathematician Dr. Cathy O'Neil says algorithms embed existing bias into code — with potentially destructive outcomes.
Thought leaders and resources
Creative Commons License
Parts of this guide are adapted from:
- AI, ChatGPT, and the Library Libguide by Amy Scheelke for Salt Lake Community College licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Decoding Deception by Diana Daly and Kainan Jarrette licensed under a CC BY NC-SA 4.0
- Generative Artificial Intelligence by The UC San Diego Library, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Changes include rewriting and combining some passages and adding original material.
Artificial Intelligence and Bias
All AI contains bias. AI mirrors society, and society is biased. The datasets used to train AI contain bias, because they were built by humans. AI is being used in decision making, but how can those decisions be equitable if AI's training comes from biased data? How can we move toward more ethical AI?
The articles and resources below offer various perspectives about the problems of bias embedded in today's AI tools as well as some suggestions for reducing bias.
- What is AI bias? IBM
- When AI Gets It Wrong: Addressing AI Hallucinations and Bias, MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies. 2025
- 10 Ways to Guard Against Algorithmic Bias and AI Narcissism, Psychology Today, September 2025
- Eliminating bias in AI may be impossible – a computer scientist explains how to tame it instead. The Conversation, July 2023
- Coded Bias 2020 film - available on Netflix
- Biased online images train AI bots to see women as younger, less experienced, Science News, October 2025
- AI was asked to create images of Black African docs treating white kids. How'd it go? NPR, October 2023
Videos
This short video gives a simple explanation for how machine learning acquires bias. It is from Google, so it is a bit of the fox guarding the henhouse, but it clearly defines the concept and the problem, as well as the measures Google feels it has taken to alleviate bias.
This video from London Interdisciplinary School, a British university, looks at images generated by AI tools and the types of bias that crops up. The video uses the concept of "representational bias" to show the harm done when gender, racial, and economic biases from the real world are replicated and amplified by AI tools, and also points to possible regulatory solutions.
In this eye-opening TED talk, computer scientist Joy Buolamwini explores alarming racial gaps in facial recognition software. Buolamwini is also the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League.