When it comes to applying AI to serve marginalized populations such as LGBTQ youth, the stakes are incredibly high. Unlike many organizations that look to replace human input with AI, Trevor takes a human-centric approach to enhance its services. For example, the organization recently implemented a natural language processing model to connect youth at highest risk with counselors as quickly as possible and an AI chatbot to scale its counselor training program, with the ultimate goal to save more young LGBTQ lives.

When designing and implementing these tools, it was incredibly important to Trevor to ensure the fair and beneficial use of AI, and to avoid algorithmic biases as much as possible. In order to do so, Trevor’s tech team took an intersectional approach when developing its models, which included ensuring diverse and representative datasets, continuously evaluating their progress, working with teams across the organization and more. In this presentation, The Trevor Project’s Kendra Gaunt and Taki Hasegawa will dive further into Trevor’s approach to AI, including how they built their existing tools, the considerations involved, and the key takeaways they learned along the way.