Artificial intelligence (AI) may not be as effective in detecting signs of depression in the social media posts of Black Americans as it is in those of their white counterparts, according to a new study.

What Happened: The study, conducted by researchers from the U.S., found that an AI model was over three times less predictive for depression when applied to Black individuals using Meta Platforms Inc.'s (NASDAQ:META) Facebook than for white individuals.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous research suggested that people who frequently use first-person pronouns and certain categories of words are at a higher risk for depression. However, this study found that these language associations were related to depression exclusively for white individuals.

"Race seems to have been especially neglected in work on language-based assessment of mental illness," the study said.

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Lead author Sharath Chandra Guntuku of the Center for Insights to Outcomes at Penn Medicine stated, "We were surprised that these language associations found in numerous prior studies didn’t apply across the board."

While Guntuku acknowledged that social media data cannot be used to diagnose a patient with depression, it could be used for risk assessment of an individual or group.

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Why It Matters: "Godfather of AI" and Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, had previously said it's "absolutely not" possible to create an unbiased AI system. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen had previously warned of "bias" in AI chatbots.

That said, this is not the first time that AI has been found to have biases.

For instance, a Harvard University article from 2020 highlighted the racial bias in face recognition technology, particularly against Black Americans.

The study’s findings also underscore the importance of inclusive technology, such as Google’s Real Tone, which aims to bring accuracy to cameras and the images they produce, particularly for diverse skin tones.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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