Custom software and web development, Richmond-based

Bias AI

Jan 21, 2026

Q: I heard something on the radio about Amazon building a robot to help them decide who to hire but the robot was sexist or something and now I’m confused. What’s going on?

A: What is up with all this advanced technology being racist and sexist all the time?! Dark skin not triggering automatic bathroom soap dispensers (bit.ly/2EGvngP)? Facial recognition software telling Asians to open their eyes for their passport photos (https://reut.rs/2S8NheC)? Shouldn’t tech be smarter than that? It’s an old problem that boils down to new technology not being tested on minority populations and it goes back at least to the invention of scissors for only right-handed folk.

You’re probably referring to the story “Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women,” reported by Reuters at https://reut.rs/2D1MeJg. It wasn’t a robot—it was a computer program meant to help guide hiring decisions. And it wasn’t sexist; it was just responding to the input it was given. That’s what computers do, often to the chagrin of users and programmers alike.

Such stories have become increasingly common as big tech companies have tried to automate decisions that once fell to lowly humans. After all, if Alexa can understand speech well enough to turn off the lights, shouldn’t her cousins be able to sift through some résumés? One of the hopes for Artificial Intelligence was that it might make decisions based on pure data and rigorous math without succumbing to prejudices like people do.

What went wrong? One of the first lessons of programming is GIGO—“garbage in, garbage out.” It doesn’t matter how great your program is: bad inputs lead to bad outputs.

The type of AI used here is called Machine Learning (ML), because it mimics how humans learn. Consider how kids learn to distinguish cats from dogs. They don’t memorize a set of rules to apply whenever they see an animal. Instead, their parents point to Fido and say “dog,” or tell them to “pet the cat” when Whiskers saunters by.

Different neurons are activated when they see different animals, and eventually their brains associate certain patterns of neurons firing with cats and others with dogs. At that point, they have learned the difference.

Programmers simulate this brain behavior with a program called a neural network. These are trained­ by showing them thousands of labeled cat and dog pictures. Then they are tested when asked to categorize a new picture not seen before. If their training was successful—if they determined the patterns that differentiate a dog from a cat—they will correctly identify new pictures without human intervention.

This technology is powerful: it gave us Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. But because of GIGO, it also gave Amazon a “sexist” HR assistant. The quotes are because the program doesn’t really know about men and women—it only knows about inputs and outputs. Since it was trained with résumés that Amazon had accepted and rejected, it learned that Amazon didn’t hire many candidates who graduated from majority-women colleges or listed certain hobbies (softball, maybe, or ballet). Amazon did not provide details, but they did cancel the program.

It turns out that feeding biased data into a program designed to look for patterns causes it to learn the biases and then mimic them. GIGO.

The problem is not new. In 2016, ProPublica claimed to find it in software that predicts recidivism rates for criminal offenders (bit.ly/2JgDqzC). That same year, Microsoft had to shutter an AI-powered Twitter chatbot after twenty-four hours because it quickly learned to imitate homophobic slurs (https://for.tn/2D1M4Bo).

Even when the results aren’t disastrous, they can be just…weird. Witness Burger King’s advertising speak created by similar programs: bit.ly/2EFV1SL. Or check out a whole site dedicated to AI weirdness: aiweirdness.com.

What’s the solution? Feeding in unbiased data certainly helps, as does removing irrelevant data points. Some researchers report success with a statistical trick called oversampling—giving their programs three copies of each résumé from a woman, for example, so the program doesn’t notice a discrepancy in previous hiring practices.

We think the problems will persist until someone invents Artificial Judgment (AJ), to coin a term, to go along with AI. We’ll get on that right away, as soon as we extract this left-handed mouse from its packaging with our new left-handed scissors.

Internet Challenges

Jan 21, 2026

Dear PropellerHeads: My kid seems really interested in internet challenges, but I’ve heard some could be dangerous. Should I be worried?

A: I’m going to state the obvious first, that you need to be concerned about your child’s internet activity in general. How you choose to do so has a lot to do with your parenting style, but most importantly your child, their maturity, and their willingness to come to you should they encounter something they don’t understand or find concerning.

To speak to challenges specifically, it seems like this phenomenon was really built for young people and how they choose to interact with the internet, social media, and online content. Challenges such as the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” and the “Mannequin Challenge” set up the structure of something that was easily imitable, shareable, and infectious.

Children and teens are more impulsive, as their brains are still developing, and many look for positive affirmation and reinforcement from their peers. Posting their own version of a challenge on their social media or YouTube and waiting for likes and views to roll in provides easy and instant validation for those still navigating the murky waters of establishing self-confidence.

So, big deal, your kid wants to douse their friend with cold water, or do a silly dance routine and post it for their friends. What’s the problem?

It’s when those putting out and propagating these challenges prey on (or don’t consider) the impulsivity, naivety, and need to belong in kids that you should really begin to worry. The “In my Feelings Challenge” seems harmless and fun at first glance as simply another dance routine to do by yourself or with friends and put your own version out.

Perhaps not ill-intended, most versions of this challenge involve the dancer jumping out of a moving car to perform the dance moves (bit.ly/2KqB19G). This is a dangerous choice at any age, but the sheer number of videos with people successfully completing the challenge in this way may encourage an impressionable young person to jump into doing something with dire consequences.

Challenges like the “Cinnamon Challenge” (bit.ly/2uXCHwF) and the “Hot Pepper Challenge” (bit.ly/2U56ayR), which involves eating a ridiculously hot ghost pepper, may on the surface seem funny and harmless, but some kids found themselves merely coughing as side effects, others vomited, and some found themselves in the ER.

The “Tide Pod Challenge” seems on its face like a farce, but some took the challenge literally and ingested poisonous cleaning solutions all for the sake of a challenge and an internet post, to the point where PSAs and new product packaging were rolled out to deter and protect against this dangerous challenge (bit.ly/2uYJRRe).

Fire and ice seem to be popular themes in the realm of online challenges. The “Boiling Water Challenge” produced some compelling pictures and videos during the polar vortex of 2019 (bit.ly/2UqriES). Despite the cool visuals, it also sent several people to the hospital with serious burns.

The “Salt and Ice Challenge” (bit.ly/2D6Bibz) encouraged the combination of an ice cube and salt placed directly on the skin and caused second-degree burns in some participants. The “Fire Challenge,” where kids cover their bodies in flammable liquids, set themselves ablaze, and then jump into a pool or a shower, had the consequences you might suspect (bit.ly/2G2Tx2v). Nonetheless, it became viral several years ago.

Are there really challenges out there intended to cause direct harm to their participants? A widely reported hoax, “The Momo Challenge,” featured a sinister character that was supposedly embedded in children’s YouTube cartoons and would tell kids to harm themselves or engage in dangerous behavior or Momo would come and harm them or their families (bit.ly/2WVR4gQ). Although that was debunked, it opened serious questions about how easily this type of content could get to kids and teens and if it’s really out there.

It’s become more widely reported about suicide pacts amongst people who have discussed their plans online, but we are starting to see these pacts show up amongst young people who decide to go so far as to film their deaths to share with their peers and the world. One mother’s story is eye-opening, that there were no signs of this happening to her child (bit.ly/2KpOVZq), and that as parents we rely on peers and others to help us know when things are getting out of control.

Does all of this add up to your child falling prey to a sinister internet challenge each time they are on their device? I don’t think the answer is as incendiary as that, but in reviewing some of the dangerous activities young people are enthusiastically jumping into, it isn’t too far of a leap to see how someone with morbid motivations could really cause widespread harm quickly.

Does all of this add up to your child falling prey to a sinister internet challenge each time they are on their device? I don’t think the answer is as incendiary as that, but in reviewing some of the dangerous activities young people are enthusiastically jumping into, it isn’t too far of a leap to see how someone with morbid motivations could really cause widespread harm quickly.

CES 2019

Jan 21, 2026

Dear PropellerHeads: The Consumer Electronics Show came and went a month ago and I’m still waiting for the PropellerHeads’ take on all the exciting new technology they announced – what gives?

A: We just assumed that some sort of AI chatbot was going to write this column for us, but since that hasn’t come to pass – yet – we’ll have to do it ourselves. Still, if the 2019 CES was any indication, Amazon or Google will end up sticking Alexa or Google Assistant somewhere in this write-up before we get to the end of it.

For any of our readers who’ve just learned about electricity since Christmas: The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the annual Las Vegas convocation where big-name tech companies introduce the latest gear, gadgets, and gewgaws that we’ll consign to our attics in twenty years after they enjoy a brief layover in our daily lives as The Next Big Thing We Don’t Know How We Ever Lived Without. If that sounds overly dramatic, consider past hits: VCRs (1970), camcorders (1981), DVDs (1996), and HDTVs (1998).

If CES is nothing else, it’s the place to see huge TVs, and lots of ‘em. There’s your 98-inch 8K set from Samsung (cnet.co/2WSnoSS) and your 75-inch MicroLED “modular” TV, also from Samsung (bit.ly/2GbgdA0) – this one is made up of panels that you can re-arrange into different shapes. LG’s Signature OLED TV R rolls up into its base when not in use (bit.ly/2GsCcS7) like a glowing square armadillo, if those had Alexa and Google Assistant integration.

If you’re a gamer and price is no obstacle, HP introduced a 65-inch 4K UHD monitor for $5000 (bit.ly/2RHKKGP). Steep, sure, but gamers gotta game, right? At half the size and a tenth the price, Samsung’s Space monitor sports slim bezels, a space-saving clamp, and built-in cable management (bit.ly/2Tyttlj).

Several companies launched new smart watches at the show this year (bit.ly/2BmE9w2), from Kate Spade’s stylish Scallop 2 to Withings’ Move ECG (as in electrocardiogram). Sphero introduced Specdrums, “smart rings” that detect what color item you’re tapping your finger on and play different sounds that you customize with their app (sphero.com/specdrums). Embr Labs demonstrated the Wave, a bracelet that warms or cools the “thermally sensitive skin” of your wrist to simulate the chill of an ice cube or “the comforting warmth of a hot drink” (embrlabs.com).

But all the real, smart fun is in the real, smart home of the future. Smart mirrors from various companies recommend clothes for your body type (“Tap here to shop muumuus” – probably my new mirror), display the news and your schedule for the day (thanks to Google Assistant integration), or preview different hair and make-up options using augmented reality. See bit.ly/2SgzGG5 for which company makes which of these mirrors.

But a home is not a smart home without a clever loo, and that’s where the Kohler Intelligent Toilet comes in (bit.ly/2TxrDkE). With Alexa integration (really), “adjustable water temperature, pressure, and spray,” a heated seat, ambient lighting, an automatic deodorizer, an automatic lid, and speakers with wireless streaming, this promises to be the smartest thing you’ve pooped on since that scathing review of Rushmore you wrote for the high school newspaper.

Maybe it’s your cat that needs an iPotty? Check out the LavvieBot (lavviebot.com), a self-cleaning litter box that beams your cat’s weight and, um, “business schedule” to the included “PurrSong” smartphone crapplication. Need to know if Mr. Whiskers BMs in the PMs? Kohler can’t help you there! Who’s the smart can meow?! Bye-bye, “there’s an app for that” – hello, “there’s a crap for cat!”

If a cat is exactly the opposite of what you crave, Groove X introduced the Lovot, a robot that “can beg for attention and follow you around” (engt.co/2HVE9sS). Instead of trying to explain how weird it is, we’ll just tell you it’s from Japan.

Who knows what weird and wacky widgets they’ll think up next? Whatever they are, we’ll cover them here in eleven short months when they debut at CES 2020. In the meantime: “Alexa, warm up this seat and play my throne room tunes.”