AI Technology and Bias in Detecting Psychiatric Disorders

The brain’s frontal and temporal lobes are responsible for our social skills, memory, behavior, audio, emotional, and language processing. Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that impairs a person’s auditory and cognitive processing and affects their thoughts, behavior, and actions (NYU Langone Health, n.d.). Schizophrenia is also associated with a reduction in the size of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, which can impact stimuli processing and cause hallucinations (Cleveland Clinic, 2024). Schizophrenia affects a disproportionate amount of Black men (especially those with other mental conditions) compared to other ethnic and racial groups (Gara, 2019). While this trend can be partially explained by genetic and environmental factors such as family history, childhood health complications, urbanicity, and substance abuse, a prominent reason that Black men are diagnosed with schizophrenia is due to racial bias present in the AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology used to aid physicians in detecting and diagnosing psychiatric disorders, as well as systemic racial bias present in America’s healthcare system.