Affirming the Scientific Consensus on Bias and Discrimination in AI

We, the undersigned researchers, affirm the scientific consensus that artificial intelligence (AI) can exacerbate bias and discrimination in society, and that governments need to enact appropriate guardrails and governance in order to identify and mitigate these harms. [1]

Over the past decade, thousands of scientific studies have shown how biased AI systems can violate civil and human rights, even if their users and creators are well-intentioned. [2] When AI systems perpetuate discrimination, their errors make our societies less just and fair. Researchers have observed this same pattern across many fields, including computer science, the social sciences, law, and the humanities. Yet while scientists agree on the common problem of bias in AI, the solutions to this problem are an area of ongoing research, innovation, and policy.

These facts have been a basis for bipartisan and global policymaking for nearly a decade. [3] We urge policymakers to continue to develop public policy that is rooted in and builds on this scientific consensus, rather than discarding the bipartisan and global progress made thus far.

Signed (200+),

• Gavin Abercrombie, Assistant Professor, Heriot-Watt University

• Carina Albrecht, PhD Candidate, Simon Fraser University

• Meysam Alizadeh, University of Zurich

• Ira Allen, Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University

• Shahana Ansari, Postdoctoral Researcher, Indiana University

• Usman Anwar

• Rom, Associate Professor, University of the Philippines

• Joseph Bak-Coleman, University of Konstanz

• Stephen Barnard, Associate Professor, Butler University

• Solon Barocas, Microsoft Research and Cornell University

• Burcu Baykurt, Assistant Professor, UMass Amherst

• Sara Beery, Assistant Professor, MIT

• Yoshua Bengio, Full Professor, University of Montreal

• Ruha Benjamin, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University

• Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Professor, Santa Fe Institute

• Marta Bienkiewicz, Z-Inspection Initiative

• Abeba Birhane, Research Fellow, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin

• Ben Bogart, PhD

• Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

• Serena Booth, Assistant Professor, Brown University

• Adji Bousso Dieng, Princeton University

• Meredith Broussard, Associate Professor, NYU

• Cody Buntain, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland

• Joy Buolamwini, Accelerator Fellow, University of Oxford

• Robin Burke, Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder

• Thorsten Busch, Ph.D., Zurich University of Applied Sciences & University of St. Gallen

• Courtney C. Radsch, PhD

• David C. Bauman, PhD. Professor of Business Ethics, Regis University

• Laura Carter, Tech Policy Fellow, University of California Berkeley

• Prudence Carter, Professor, Brown University

• Karine Caunes, Associate Researcher, Lyon 3 University, Executive Director, Centre for AI & Digital Humanism

• Florence Chee, Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago

• Kasia Chmielinski, Affiliate, Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University

• David Colarusso, Co-Director of the Legal Innovation & Technology Lab at Suffolk University Law Schoo

• Kathryn Conrad, University of Kansas

• Sasha Costanza-Chock, Faculty Associate, Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University

• M.J. Crockett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Values, Princeton University

• Catherine Cronin

• Isadora Cruxen, Lecturer, Queen Mary University of London

• Jack Cushman, Director, Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab

• Michael D. Ekstrand, Dept. of Information Science, Drexel University

• Catherine D'Ignazio, Associate Professor of Urban Science & Planning, MIT

• Lukas Daniel Klausner, Researcher, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences

• Hal Daumé III, University of Maryland

• Gerard de Melo, Professor, Hasso Plattner Institute / University of Potsdam

• Victoria Dean, Assistant Professor, Olin College of Engineering

• Jennifer Dunne, Professor, Santa Fe Institute

• Alice E. Marwick, Director of Research, Data & Society Research Institute; Senior Faculty Researcher, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Laura Edelson, Northeastern University

• Remmelt Ellen, AI Safety Camp

• Anna-Louise Ellis

• Ro Encarnación, Ph.D. Student, University of Pennsylvania

• Avriel Epps, Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

• Mark Esposito, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society & Harvard's Center for International Development

• David Evan Harris, University of California, Berkeley

• Benjamin Eysenbach, Assistant Professor, Princeton University

• Alessandro Fabris, University of Trieste

• Golnoosh Farnadi, McGill University; Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Mila

• Henry Farrell, Professor, Johns Hopkins University

• Luis Felipe R. Murillo, Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame

• Brian Fisher, Professor of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University

• Jessica Fjeld, Practitioner-in-Residence, Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic

• Laura Forlano, Northeastern University

• Andreas Formiconi, University of Florence

• Vincent Fortuin, TU Munich

• Sorelle Friedler, Professor, Haverford College

• Kim Gallon, Associate Professor, Brown University

• Noa Garcia, University of Osaka

• James Garforth, Lecturer, University of Edinburgh

• Timnit Gebru, The Distributed AI Research Institute

• Carlos Gershenson-Garcia, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, Binghamton University

• Marzyeh Ghassemi, Associate Professor, MIT

• Noah Giansiracusa, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Bentley University

• Jeffrey Gleason, PhD Candidate, Northeastern University

• Lauri Goldkind, Professor, Fordham University

• Renée Gosline, Senior Lecturer and Research Scientist, MIT

• Erhardt Graeff, Associate Professor of Social and Computer Science, Olin College of Engineering

• Ben Green, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

• Ben Grosser, Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Eugene H. Spafford, Professor, Purdue University

• Alex Hanna, The Distributed AI Research Institute

• Heidy Harley

• Alison Harvey, Associate Professor, Glendon College, York University

• James Hendler, Tetherless World Chair of Computer Science, RPI

• Alex Hernandez-Garcia, Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal

• James Holehouse, Santa Fe Institute

• Ken Holstein, Carnegie Mellon University

• Benedikt Höltgen, PhD candidate, University of Tübingen

• Brett Israelsen, Principal Researcher, RTX Technology Research Center

• Yves Jeanrenaud, Postdoctoral Fellow at LMU Munich and Deputy Professor at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

• Dariusz Jemielniak, Professor, Koźmiński University

• Marc Juarez, Lecturer on Cybersecurity and Privacy, University of Edinburgh

• Jonas Kaiser, Assistant Professor at Suffolk University and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

• Sayash Kapoor, Princeton University

• Karrie Karahalios, Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois

• Wesley Kerr, University of Pitsburgh

• Aidan Kierans, Ph.D. Student, University of Connecticut | School of Computing

• Jennifer King, Privacy & Data Policy Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

• Lorraine Kisselburgh, retired professor, Purdue University

• Lauren Klein, Associate Professor, Emory University

• Richard Knepper, Director, Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing

• Catherine Knight Steele, Associate Professor, University of Maryland

• Allison Koenecke, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

• Raj Korpan, Assistant Professor, Hunter College, City University of New York

• Sanmi Koyejo, Assistant Professor, Stanford University

• Gretchen Krueger, Research Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University

• Bogdan Kulynych, Ph.D.

• Emma L. Briant, Visiting Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame

• Meredith L. Pruden, Assistant Professor, Kennesaw State University

• Simson L. Garfinkel, Executive Committee, Association for Computing Machinery US Technology Policy Committee

• Pam Lach, Digital Humanities Librarian, San Diego State University

• Rebekah Larsen, Marie Curie Fellow, University of Copenhagen

• Tom Lebrun, Laval University

• Crystal Lee, Assistant Professor, MIT

• Ting-an Lin, Assistant professor, University of Connecticut

• Shaoshan Liu, Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society

• Sonia Livingstone, Professor, London School of Economic and Political Science

• Sarah M Brown, Assistant Professor, University of Rhode Island

• Mary Madden, Professor, Georgetown University

• Tegan Maharaj, Assistant Professor, Mila / HEC

• Fintan Mallory, Philosopher of AI, Durham University

• Anna Marchese, Senior Project Officer, Columbia World Projects (Columbia University)

• Gary Marcus, Emeritus Professor, NYU

• Nik Marda, Adjunct Lecturer, Northwestern University

• Israel Mason-Williams, UKRI Safe and Trusted AI

• Jeanna Matthews, Professor, Clarkson University

• Michelle Mazurek, Associate Professor, University of Maryland

• Kristina McElheran, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

• Danaé Metaxa, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania

• Jake Metcalf, Data & Society Research Institute

• Nana Mgbechikwere Nwachukwu, Affiliate, Berkman Klein Centre for Internet & Society

• Alexander Mikhalev, Zestic AI Ltd

• Niti Mishra, PhD candidate, Pompeu Fabra University

• Alan Mislove, Professor, Northeastern University

• Melanie Mitchell, Professor, Santa Fe Institute

• Petra Molnar, York University and Berkman Klein Center, Harvard

• Connie Moon Sehat, Director of Research, Discourse Labs

• Cristopher Moore, Santa Fe Institute

• Melanie Moses, Professor of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

• Deirdre Mulligan, Professor, University of California, Berkeley

• David Murakami Wood, Canada Research Chair in Critical Surveillance and Security Studies

• Mor Naaman, Professor, Cornell Tech

• M. Nagenborg, Associate Professor Philosophy of Technology, University of Twente (NL)

• Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University

• J. Nathan Matias, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

• Eva Navarro López, Professor in Computing and AI at Rochester Institute of Technology

• Alondra Nelson, Professor, Institute for Advanced Study

• Jiří Němeček, Czech Technical University

• Vera Neplenbroek, PhD Student, University of Amsterdam

• Sarah Newman, Director, metaLAB, Harvard University

• Gandalf Nicolas, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University

• Maria Nyåkern, Nyakern Nexus Labs

• Bex O'Higgins, Founder, KI-AH-NA

• Amanda Palmer, Affiliate, Berkman Klein Institute

• Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Assistant Professor, Technical University of Munich

• Nicolas Papernot, Assistant Professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair, University of Toronto and Vector Institute

• Dylan Paré, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University

• Ellie Pavlick, Assistant Professor, Brown University

• Tuomas Pernu, Lecturer in Philosophy of Science and Research Ethics, University of Eastern Finland

• Emma Pierson, Assistant Professor, Berkeley

• Raechel Portelli, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign

• Julian Posada, Assistant Professor, Yale University

• Dasha Pruss, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science, George Mason University

• Ismael Rafols, Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University

• Mialy Rasetarinera, PhD Student, University of Pennsylvania

• Catherine Régis, Professor, University of Montreal, Mila

• Paola Ricaurte, Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

• Blake Richards, Associate Professor, McGill

• Luc Rocher, Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford

• David Rolnick, Assistant Professor, McGill University

• Jennifer Ross, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

• Marc Rotenberg, Founder, Center for AI and Digital Policy

• Cynthia Rudin, Duke University

• Grace S. Thomson, Center for AI & Digital Policy (CAIDP)

• Albert Sabater, Associate Professor in Computational Sociology, University of Girona, Spain

• Eryk Salvaggio, Independent Researcher

• Christian Sandvig, Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan

• Khalid Saqr, Ph.D.

• Holli Sargeant, Research Associate, University of Cambridge

• Arvind Satyanarayan, MIT CSAIL

• Nick Seaver, Associate Professor, Tufts University

• LK Seiling, Associate Researcher, Weizenbaum Institute

• Nishant Shah, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Huma Shah, Coventry University

• Katie Shilton, Professor, University of Maryland College Park

• Meghna Sinha, Senior Industry Fellow, UC Irvine

• John Slattery, Executive Director of the Grefenstette Center for Ethics at Duquesne University

• Genevieve Smith

• Alyssa Smith, PhD Candidate, Northeastern University

• Afsoon Soudi, Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Creative AI Hub at Toronto Metropolitan University

• Zahra Stardust, Berkman Klein Centre Affiliate

• Peter Suber, Harvard University

• Harini Suresh, Assistant Professor, Brown University

• Chinasa T. Okolo, Fellow, The Brookings Institution

• Zeerak Talat, Chancellor's Fellow of Responsible Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh

• Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Director, Center for Democracy & Technology

• Eugenio Tisselli, PhD

• Katayoun Torabi

• Nora Trapp, Applied Social Media Lab, Berkman Klein Center, Harvard Law School

• Rebekah Tromble, Associate Professor, George Washington University

• Sahana Udupa, Professor, LMU Munich

• Sepehr Vakil, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

• Núria Vallès-Peris, Tenured Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Spanish National Research Council (IIIA-CSIC)

• Peter Vamplew, Federation University of Australia

• Marieke van Vugt, Associate Professor, Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science & AI, University of Groningen

• Briana Vecchione, Researcher, Data & Society Research Institute

• Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Georgetown University

• Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Professor, Brown University

• Jacqueline Vickery, Ph.D., Independent Scholar,

• Bryan Victor, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Wayne State University

• Amanda Visconti, Scholars' Lab Director, University of Virginia

• Douglas W. Jones, Emeritus Associate Professor, University of Iowa

• Toby Walsh, Professor of AI and Chief Scientist, AI Institute, UNSW Sydney

• Angelina Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

• Kevin Werbach, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

• Adina Williams, Research Scientist, NYU

• Christo Wilson, Professor, Northeastern University

• Maia Woluchem, Program Director, Data & Society Research Institute

• Yuxi Wu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northeastern University

• Richard Zemel, Professor, Columbia University

• Baobao Zhang, Assistant Professor, Syracuse University

• Sam Zhang, Applied Complexity Fellow, Santa Fe Institute

• Angela Zhou, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California

• Michael Zimmer, Professor, Marquette University

• Jonathan Zong, Postdoctoral Associate, MIT