Avriel Epps highlights artificial intelligence’s role in connection and bias in virtual lecture  

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — OCTOBER 29, 2024) Empire State University welcomed Avriel Epps for a virtual talk on artificial intelligence and using technology as a tool for connection rather than a tool for disconnecting from others. The talk, held on Oct. 16, 2024, and facilitated by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, was funded by Empire State University Foundation Board Member Tina Evans ‘97 and Wayne Evans, who funded the inaugural lecture in a series titled “A Snapshot in Time: Navigating the Wider World.”  

Epps is a prominent scholar in the field of artificial intelligence, specializing in bias, identity, and human development. As a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles, Harvard University, and recipient of numerous awards and grants, Epps has dedicated her career to studying the impact of artificial intelligence on digital literacy and algorithmic bias on marginalized communities and adolescents. She brings a unique perspective combining data science, developmental psychology, and real-world experience in ed-tech and entertainment to her research.  

Epps discussed her observations in technological inequities and algorithmic bias and how they impact life for diverse communities across the country, including map and road design, facial recognition, and virtual translation tools that can exhibit gender bias. Epps specifically pointed to generative artificial intelligence and their depictions of certain populations lacking diversity, representation, and complexity. Epps also touched on the risks algorithmic bias and social media pose to children and young adults, and the lack of research that closely examines these issues.  

“Literature on algorithmic bias overlooks a developmental stage as an intersecting identity factor that might privilege or disadvantage certain individuals’ research, and developmental science has found evidence of harmful and differential effects of screen time and social media use on youth of color,” Epps said. “What we have, then, is youth of color who are marginalized by their race and ethnicity and their gender, also their age, among potentially many other intersecting identities. They may face higher risks of differential impact and treatment by these algorithmic systems.”  

Epps also discussed her model, Socio Algorithmic Systems Bio-Ecological Model of Development (SASBEM), which examines how predictive technology may influence and fundamentally change bio-ecological systems and developmental processes, focusing on black youth, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the correlation of algorithmic bias to anxiety and other conditions.  

Epps said her research has found a relationship between algorithmic bias and anxiety, particularly in young people. Epps said people are more likely to use a selfie filter when experiencing anxiety and those filters contain algorithmic biases that can influence those feelings further. Despite this, Epps said she has found that engaging in ethnic identity development has shown to counteract the relationship between algorithmic bias and anxiety.  

“This suggests that ethnic racial identity exploration, which is the process of going out to learn more about your ethnic or racial group, its history, its culture, good things about it, and instilling a sense of pride in who you are, it suggests that kind of exploration may act as a protective factor against the anxiety that is correlated with experiencing biases in selfie filters,” Epps said.  

Epps said there is much work to be done to eliminate algorithmic bias, especially those that exacerbate existing forms of marginalization and oppression and artificial intelligence can be used to both remove bias and correct historical social injustices.  

“I think it will be nearly impossible to escape the harms of algorithmic bias until our culture is able to adopt a technology development framework and ethos of how technology should be built in our society that both meaningfully grapples with historical and present-day injustices and also prioritizes community empowerment and self-determination,” Epps said.