Search Engines Under Fire for Promoting Scientific Racism in 2024

In recent investigations within the UK, researchers have uncovered troubling instances of AI-powered search engines promoting flawed racial theories. These theories suggest that intelligence can be quantitatively measured through IQ scores and that they indicate inherent superiority among different races. One researcher, Patrik Hermansson, focused on debunking these harmful ideas, specifically those asserting that certain populations, like individuals from Pakistan or Sierra Leone, possess significantly lower average IQs based on discredited datasets. Various AI systems, including those from Google and Perplexity, inadvertently propagated these inaccurate figures through their search query results, often citing sources that are not credible. Despite the prominent usage of these flawed datasets, there is a growing recognition in the academic community that such claims are fundamentally biased and lack substantial empirical backing. The context behind these studies points to systemic issues within the scientific community where biased datasets have been accepted uncritically. Critics have raised concerns that such studies are not only methodologically flawed but also contribute to the dangerous narrative surrounding race and intelligence. The AI-generated summaries and featured snippets perpetuated by these search engines highlight a broader issue of misinformation permeating across platforms, underscoring a need for more stringent editorial standards in AI outputs. The situation has prompted search engine companies to acknowledge their shortcomings and take steps to ensure the quality of information they present to users. Overall, this wave of scrutiny emphasizes the responsibility of both AI developers and researchers to foster informed and ethical discourses surrounding sensitive topics, particularly those influencing societal perceptions of race and intelligence.