AllyAI: The New Certification Ensuring LGBTQ+ Inclusion in the Future of AI
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As AI rapidly transforms daily life, LGBT Tech is stepping up with AllyAI—the first certification program to ensure LGBTQ+ inclusivity and safety are built into the future of artificial intelligence.
With the increased use of AI technology in everyday life, people have been raising concerns about inclusivity and safety. LGBT tech, a national nonpartisan group, is advocating for the community by creating AllyAI, the first certification for AI systems to ensure bias is identified and mitigated against LGBTQ individuals.
LGBT Tech was founded by Chris Wood with the mission to engage with technology and public policy leaders for strategic discussions to ensure the LGBTQ community is considered and present. Its programs include PowerOn, which distributes tech to homeless, isolated, and disadvantaged LGBTQ individuals; PATHS, which works to inspire and motivate LGBTQ youth and young adults in STEAM fields; and Digital Navigator, which provides education on digital skills, online safety, and affordable internet access.
The organization has also been a voice for the LGBTQ community in consulting work on hardware, software and other technologies.
The AllyAI LGBTQ+ AI Certification is the organization’s current project in progress. It was first announced at the GSVxPSU Global Impact Forum in September 2024. The certification aims to ensure LGBTQ inclusivity at every stage of AI development and deployment.
Shae Gardner, director of policy and research at LGBT Tech, explained that it’s important to look at every step of a systems creation. “The first thing we need to know is what’s happening with the data,” Gardner said. “If LGBTQ people are not present in the input, then we won’t be considered in the output.”
Historically, LGBTQ+ people’s information and stories have often been ignored or erased. This takes a whole part of the population and their interests and knowledge out of consideration. What is created from this is a diminished product that cannot serve all people.
Gardner compared this to the curb-cut effect, a phenomenon in disability studies when a feature designed for a specific group benefits the population as a whole. Curb cuts at street corners were implemented to assist wheelchair users, but now benefit people using strollers, cyclists, and delivery workers.
“There is a business angle to inclusivity in addition to a moral one,” explained Gardner. “The most recent Gallup pollfound that 9.3 percent of Americans now identify as LGBTQ+. If you don’t create this tech inclusively it is leaving out a whole population of people and will not function as you want it to.”
AllyAI will recognize specific programs that are inclusive after being rigorously tested and validated. LGBT Tech is creating an advisory board of community, expert, and industry advisors to create and update annual certification criteria. This will include legal experts as well as those in the tech field.
There will also be established channels for LGBTQ+ individuals to provide feedback.
One of the biggest considerations in creating inclusive AI is if data is considered mutable or immutable. Gardner gave the example of age as a mutable data point because our age changes every year. Other categories might be considered to stay the same throughout a person’s lifetime, such as their ethnicity or gender.
Yet the LGBTQ+ community knows that a person’s sexual or gender identity might change or evolve over their lifetime as they grow in their understanding of themselves. Identity markers and terms also change over time as the meanings of words change and new terms are created.
This means systems need to take a human- centric approach that takes into account multiple and fluid identities.
“There are key pieces we can utilize, and ensure they’re included,” said Gardner. “We can take a look at how data is being categorized, and how that represents someone as a whole human being.”
The certification process will also include red teaming, which is a cybersecurity practice of simulating an attack on a system to identify vulnerabilities. This will ensure that data is private and secure.
Executive Director and Co-Founder Chris Wood emphasized the importance of LGBTQ+ adoption of technology such as AI systems.
“Our society has rapidly accepted the use of AI, and this is only going to continue to grow,” Wood explained. “This means we need to embrace it. We need to make sure as we start building and using these tools that the AI is inclusive.”
LGBT Tech prioritizes actively using the technologies that they are researching. By utilizing up-and-coming technology, the organization works to mitigate certain harms and fight against the erasure of LGBTQ+ identities in the digital landscape.
With the changing political landscape, the LGBT Tech team has had to pivot in their plans and be more creative.
“Things have shifted a lot in the last couple months,” said Wood. “We have to consider how we continue doing this in a way that will be impactful under this administration. We want to create a program than can survive and thrive in any political environment.”
However, he also emphasized that certain things do not change — no matter who is in power. The economic incentive to include everyone is still there, and queer people continue to exist.
“We are here, we’ve always been here. Our trans community is under attack; communities are being censored, and we see that as even more incentive to ensure LGBTQ are counted and safely included in all aspects,” Wood said.
This has delayed development by a little bit, as LGBT Tech works on how to approach the issues in the right way.
“Because this impacts such large parts of our community, we want to be careful and mindful. But we are not slowing down. This delayed process just means we are ending up at a better place,” Wood emphasized.
One of the ways AllyAI evolved since its conception has been in community outreach. Since announcing the project, LGBT Tech has seen a desire of individuals to learn and be certified in creating inclusive AI systems. The certification might expand to train people, in addition to businesses, around the process of human centric inclusivity in technology.
“There is a collective potential in having individuals empowered, and it’s exciting to see people interested in this,” Gardner said.
Regardless of government directives, Wood wants AllyAI to be a malleable program that can change as the community’s concerns change.
“That is the ever-growing and evolving nature of which we work, and we are taking every stride possible,” Wood said.
LGBT Tech was built on the foundation of leaving the world better than it was found. By increasing LGBTQ+ visibility in the tech industry, it paves the way for continued advancements.
“It’s about raising our hand when something isn’t right, about creating change in a way that has a ripple effect,” Wood expanded. He described running into participants of LGBT Tech’s early programing, and how amazing it was to see these people in a completely different place.
AllyAI is another way to pave the road forward by ensuring future systems are including and prioritizing the LGBTQ+ community.
