GLAAD: AI Is Failing LGBTQ Users — and Crypto Firms Should Take Note
A new report from LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD warns that artificial intelligence is amplifying anti-LGBTQ bias, misinformation and discrimination in ways that reach far beyond chatbots—threatening healthcare, employment, housing, privacy and more. Released Wednesday, “Build for Everyone: A Framework for LGBTQ Representation and Safety in AI,” argues that LGBTQ safety must be treated as a core requirement of responsible AI development.
Why this matters
- Biased or incomplete training data can entrench stereotypes, silence LGBTQ voices and produce discriminatory outcomes as AI is embedded into everyday systems.
- The risks aren’t hypothetical: GLAAD highlights biased training data, anti-LGBTQ misinformation, failures in content moderation, discriminatory predictive systems and privacy harms.
- AI’s harms can scale as companies launch increasingly autonomous agents that perform tasks with minimal human oversight—agents that can inherit biases and automate exclusion, for example by omitting LGBTQ-affirming healthcare providers from search results or making false assumptions about users’ identities.
“AI is a civil rights issue,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis writes in the report. “Neutrality is no longer an option. To build AI that is ethical, inclusive, and responsible, tech leaders must proactively embrace intentional practices to create safe products.”
Business case for inclusion
GLAAD stresses that addressing LGBTQ bias is not only ethical but smart business. More than 20% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ, Ellis notes—meaning the next generation of employees and consumers will expect inclusive products. A 2023 study from LGBT Capital values global LGBTQ buying power at $4.7 trillion today and estimates it could reach $33 trillion by 2030. “To put that in perspective, if we were a country, we would be the 4th largest economy in the world,” Ellis wrote.
Context in the broader AI debate
The report arrives amid growing scrutiny of AI bias:
- Researchers recently found major models responding more favorably to Catholicism than to Jehovah’s Witnesses, atheism or agnosticism.
- Former xAI engineer Devin Kim sued xAI and SpaceX, alleging he was fired after flagging Grok’s lack of safeguards against misinformation and bias.
- xAI is also contesting a Colorado law that mandates companies assess and reduce discrimination risks in AI systems used for housing, employment and lending decisions.
GLAAD also flags other AI-driven problems—model hallucinations and “sycophantic” behavior that can generate harmful misinformation on consequential topics like health and elections.
What GLAAD recommends
To prevent biases from becoming baked into systems, the report calls on developers and regulators to:
- Improve LGBTQ representation in training datasets
- Strengthen privacy protections for users
- Maintain human oversight of moderation and high-stakes systems
- Collaborate with LGBTQ advocacy groups during design, testing and governance
- Increase industry accountability and regulatory oversight
Why crypto and web3 companies should pay attention
While the report doesn’t focus on blockchain, the implications for crypto and web3 are clear: AI is increasingly used in KYC, creditworthiness and lending models, decentralized identity systems, moderation of NFT and social platforms, DAO governance tools and automated trading or agentic bots. Biased models in any of those areas could produce unfair outcomes, reduce trust among LGBTQ users, and expose platforms to legal and reputational risk.
GLAAD’s conclusion sums it up: ignoring LGBTQ experiences in training data, product design and governance not only harms marginalized people but also undermines product quality and trust among a growing demographic. For developers building the next generation of AI-driven crypto products, the message is simple—build for everyone, or risk building for no one.
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