The paper addresses the challenges of translating socially relevant concepts related to artificial intelligence (AI) across different disciplines and discursive contexts. Based on a survey of around 500 organisations in the public sector in Norway as well as 19 in-depth interviews, we map how the risk of discrimination associated with AI is perceived and translated by the representatives of the public sector in Norway. The paper foregrounds six discursive responses to the risk of discrimination associated with the development and deployment of AI in the public sector. Based on the findings, we recommend that AI developers remain critically aware of the dynamic and emergent nature of discrimination without replacing it with ancillary concepts such as bias, differentiation, privacy, or other mainstream concepts such as justice or ethics.