Introducing Aisha: Ethical AI centered on Black community needs 

By AFRO Intern Team

Since mainstream artificial intelligence (AI) models source their data from the public web, they often exclude their minority consumers. That’s where Aisha comes in. On June 25, Onyx Impact, a Black-owned nonprofit organization focused on creating safe spaces online, launched Aisha, an AI chat assistant. Aisha (pronounced Eye-ee-sha) was created to better assist the community with a deeper cultural awareness that focuses on Black sources and history. 

“Aisha is a culturally informed AI designed to support our communities through care, context and clarity. It’s built through a Black forward, but not exclusive lens,” said Kia Sims, manager for Onyx Impact, in a recent demonstration of the platform’s abilities. “It centers trusted sources, human lived experience and historical awareness as foundational principles.”

“Other platforms are meant to really just have the white perspective as the default, whereas Aisha is meant to have the Black perspective, Black news and sources curated in the feed,” continued Sims.

This AI chat assistant emphasizes privacy, bias reduction and reliable quality sourcing. User conversations are not used to train the AI, meaning that personal data remains private and accessible only to the user. 

Aisha is built with safeguards in order to reduce bias and minimize harm. They ensure that all of their sources are verified, typically referencing Black news sites that offer high quality responses to every consumer. 

The ethics of AI go beyond the sourcing of their information. The physical location of the center also heavily impacted the Black community. AI data centers are disproportionately placed in predominantly Black areas. Aisha relies on data centers in Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal provided by Contabo, an environmentally responsible server provider. All of these centers utilize hydroelectric grids, which are the cleanest energy sources in all of North America. 

This model follows the anthropic policy by covering all grid upgrade costs associated with data centers, bringing new power generation online to match its energy consumption, and investing in water-efficient cooling systems at every facility.

You can access Aisha through the Apple App Store, google play store or visit Aisha.ai 

Andrew Hall, Briannia Robinson and Makayla Walker contributed to this report.

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