FLCC launches inaugural webinar on AI and bias

Finger Lakes Community College hosted the inaugural FLX AI Hub webinar on AI and bias, where Deborah Ortloff, co‑leader of the college's AI initiatives, welcomed attendees and introduced the session goals: community learning and practical approaches to bias. Ortloff said the series is intended to help organizations "think beyond the hype" and adopt a human‑led approach to AI use.

Computing science professor Dave Gadeau opened the presentation with a primer on how modern models are trained and why bias emerges. "AI is nothing more than a probability machine," Gadeau said, demonstrating with a "knock‑knock" example to show how models select likely continuations from vast training data. He told participants the webinar would cover both unintentional dataset bias and intentional design choices in deployed systems.