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With AI companies promising bigger and better products, what kind of guardrails will ensure their algorithms aren’t discriminatory — or used in discriminatory ways? U.S. Sen. Ed Markey proposed a bill yesterday that would ban companies from using algorithms that discriminate on factors like race and sex, require independent audits for algorithmic bias, and give people the right to appeal AI-driven decisions to a human.
“A 2022 study found that AI models used to predict liver disease were twice as likely to miss the disease in women than in men. A 2025 study found that AI resume screening tools almost never selected Black male names to proceed in the hiring process. This is unacceptable,” Markey said.
Reverend Chris Hope, a technology activist and spiritual leader, has been among those advising Markey on creating an AI Bill of Rights. In a conversation about AI ethics with Paris Alston on GBH News Rooted, Hope said he wants to see the U.S. step up its protections of people, their data, their jobs and their autonomy.
“When you’re using the technology to replace people, that’s not progress,” Hope said. “Progress is allowing people to learn, and educating them with new skills so they can adapt to this new workforce that we’re in.” You can check out their full conversation here.
Four Things to Know
1. A family in Springfield that received a deportation order on sticky notes from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — telling them to leave the country or face federal immigration — can remain in their Massachusetts home, at least for now. Juan David Quichimbo, Mirian Ximena Abarca Tixe and their 7-year-old daughter entered the U.S. legally, coming from Ecuador in 2021, and have a pending application for a visa for survivors of human trafficking. A federal judge has ordered that ICE not deport them if they are detained in the near future, giving immigration officials time to review their application.
“I am completely afraid of going back. The way I came here — the threats we got over there, toward my family, it would be terrifying to go back, even if we went to another town. As soon as they find out we’re back there, they will find us,” Quichimbo said.
2. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley announced she will not run for Senate against Sen. Ed Markey next year and instead plans to seek re-election to her House seat representing Boston and nearby communities.
Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem will challenge Markey in the Democratic primary, and attorney and crypto advocate John Deaton is seeking the Republican nomination.
3. With Haiti’s men’s soccer team qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1974, Haitians and Haitian Americans in Boston are feeling excited. One fan, Lionel Lucien, said he hopes the team will play at least one match at Gillette Stadium. “Words cannot express, basically, the joy it brought to every Haitian, every Haitian American,” Lucien said.
But fans hoping to travel from Haiti to attend World Cup games may face a major hurdle: the Trump administration’s travel ban, which bars Haitians from entering the United States. “We hope that the Trump administration will reverse their decision. And we hope that the president of FIFA, which seems to have a good relationship with President Trump, will talk him out of that type of decision,” Lucien said. “It is not only unfair, this is pretty much inhumane.”
4. The Boston Pops are gearing up for about 50 Holiday Pops concerts this month. Highlights include two “Elf” in concert performances, where the orchestra will play John Debney’s score live alongside the 2003 Will Ferrell movie; a live performance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas;” and a New Year’s Eve show with actor, singer and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane performing classics from the Great American songbook. You can find their full Boston schedule here.
There are also kid-friendly performances. “We decided to do a shorter concert with a more kid-friendly sort of menu, and change the program a little in light of the fact that most people were obviously coming to this experience for their children, but still make them so they play well for the parents,” conductor Keith Lockhart said.
From churches to banks, urban school districts find creative ways to update facilities
When a school building gets old, outdated or no longer fits its student population, cities and towns have a few places they can turn for money to pay for renovations and new construction. They can seek funding from local taxes, federal funds, and the quasi-independent state government agency called the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
But sometimes that state money is not available, or there’s a very long wait to get it. Researchers at MassINC recently found that Boston and the state’s Gateway Cities receive less funding than wealthier suburban communities, despite needing money for school buildings. That means Black and Hispanic students in Massachusetts are more likely than white students to go to a school without a library or a gym — and more likely to attend classes in a building that’s not in good physical shape.
“If there isn’t a new building on the horizon, you have to be very creative and you have to invest, because you can’t wait,” New Bedford Superintendent Andrew O’Leary said. “Nothing more important than school buildings; that’s where our kids are.”
GBH’s Trajan Warren has a roundup of ways in which school districts around the state have gotten creative. In Lynn, where more than a dozen of the city’s 27 schools are over 100 years old, the city bought the building where Eastern Bank held its regional headquarters and converted it into the Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy. They also moved some of the school district’s administrative offices there, and turned their old offices into 17 pre-K classrooms.
And in Chelsea, the school department bought a church and is working to convert it into classrooms for over-age students. The church cost $2.8 million, funded by local tax funds and private donations. Renovations will cost about $12 million, $9 million of which the city has already secured.
“We want to make sure that our buildings are welcoming, that they’re clean, and that our children are learning in facilities that are bright, that are beautiful and that say, ‘we care about you,’” Chelsea School Superintendent Almi Abeyta said.
Read Warren’s full reporting about these projects here.
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