Patna: Patna Women’s College witnessed an engaging and thoughtful academic event on January 22 when the Lexicon Language Club organised a special orientation programme and expert talk at the MVEIC Hall. The theme of the programme, “AI and Communicative Challenges: Identifying and Mitigating Biases,” focused on how artificial intelligence is changing human language and communication. The session was designed to help students understand not only how AI works, but also how it can carry hidden social and cultural biases through the words it produces.
The programme began with an introduction by the anchor, Shruti Singh, who explained the vision of the Lexicon Language Club. She spoke about the club’s aim to promote love for language and awareness about how words shape society. She also highlighted the club’s past activities, such as the celebration of International Mother Language Day and the Bhasha Voyage exhibition, which encouraged students to respect and explore different languages. Students Avantika and Palak Verma also shared their thoughts, with Palak reminding everyone of the importance of words by quoting Samuel Johnson: “Language is the dress of thought.”
The main speaker of the day was Dr Shweta Sinha, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Patna. After being welcomed and felicitated, Dr Sinha delivered a clear and informative lecture on how artificial intelligence understands and produces language. She explained concepts such as neural networks, machine learning and natural language processing in simple terms so that everyone could follow. She also spoke about how AI tools, such as translation apps and chatbots, learn from large amounts of data taken from human language.
Dr Sinha explained that because AI learns from human data, it often picks up human prejudices as well. These can include gender bias, cultural stereotypes and unfair assumptions. Using everyday examples and Hindi expressions, she showed how these hidden biases can appear in AI-generated texts. She warned that if such problems are not checked, AI may continue to spread these unfair ideas on a large scale. She encouraged students to be responsible users of technology and to always question the information given by machines.
The session ended with an interactive question-and-answer round, where students asked Dr Sinha about the future of ethical and fair artificial intelligence. The programme was coordinated by Dr Devina Krishna, Coordinator of the Lexicon Language Club, and the vote of thanks was delivered by Muskan. The event left students with a deeper understanding of how important it is to use both language and technology in a thoughtful and responsible way.
