AI FOR ALL COURSE
Debiasing GenAI
beyond WEIRD Cultural Defaults
Course Overview
Debiasing GenAI beyond WEIRD Cultural Defaults is a live, interactive training designed for global professionals working at the intersection of:
Programs that Support Families and Children
Behavioral Science and Design
Donor Strategy and Ethical Funding
Technology, Innovation, and AI Policy
Why this course matters
Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude are being used to inform decisions across health, education, protection, and humanitarian response — but whose perspectives do they reflect?
Most AI systems are trained on data from WEIRD societies:
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.
These systems:
Mirror the psychology of a narrow cultural slice of the world
Struggle to represent culturally diverse or marginalized populations
Often reinforce biases around religion, gender, ethnicity, and geographical and socioeconomic status.
Are least aligned with societies most distant from WEIRD norms.
As these tools are adopted globally, the risk is clear:
AI that appears neutral may encode deep cultural bias — with real-world implications for children and the programs that serve them.
This course is designed to help practitioners, funders, and designers understand, identify, and address these biases — using case studies, behavioral insights, and a cross-cultural lens.
What you’ll learn
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
Define “WEIRD bias” and explain how it emerges in AI.
Recognize representation and allocation harms in LLMs.
Analyze real-world examples of cross-cultural mismatch in GenAI behavior through hands-on exercises, drawing on participants' own work contexts pertaining to families and children, behavioral science and design, tech, or donor strategy decisions, to understand how cultural assumptions shape AI model outputs.
Apply evidence-based strategies to mitigate cultural bias in AI tools — including techniques for bias-aware prompting and incorporating contextual insights from both models and users.
Course Format
AI for All: Debiasing GenAI beyond WEIRD Cultural Defaults
STRUCTURE
2 live 90-minute online sessions per cohort
MATERIALS
Slides and recordings available for all participants
INTERACTIVE
Includes real-world examples, group discussions, and practical reflection tasks
CERTIFICATE
Certificate of completion for all participants at the end of the course
COURSE FEE
$280 USD PER PARTICIPANT