Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Thursday hosted a panel with experts and activists for a discussion on how artificial intelligence can impact civil rights.
"I love technology and innovation," Booker said during the discussion, according to The Hill. "But I also know that technology can elevate the power of discrimination."
The panelists noted that AI-powered tools can often discriminate against minorities and women, such as the algorithms used to determine mortgages being more likely to deny home loans to people of color than to white people.
"Equal opportunity and civil rights and racial justice are inextricably linked and impacted by today's and tomorrow's technology," Damon Hewitt, the president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said during the panel.
"Algorithms are used to make decisions about all aspects of our lives: determining who gets bailed, who can rent a house, and where we can go to school," he added.
"Although these systems are so widely used, we know that they pose a high risk of discrimination, disproportionately harming the communities that we focus on at the Lawyers' Committee and other civil rights organizations," Hewitt said. "Because algorithmic technologies are built using data that reflects generations of redlining, segregation, and such, they often build on bad data — discriminatory data that is going to be likely to harm people."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.