Algorithmic Bias
When an AI system produces unfair or prejudiced decisions because the data it learned from contained human biases.
In Plain English
AI is like a mirror reflecting society. If an AI is trained on historical hiring data where mostly men were hired for engineering jobs, the AI will learn the false rule that men make better engineers. It is not intentionally racist or sexist; it is just blindly repeating the prejudices hidden in its training data. Fixing this requires humans to actively curate better, more diverse data.
Real-World Example
An AI resume-screening tool automatically rejecting female candidates because it was trained on resumes from a male-dominated industry.