Coded Bias-race-technology-and-algorithms

Coded Bias explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the US to govern against algorithmic bias.

Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly governs our liberties? And what are the consequences for the people AI is biased against? In a post-screening discussion, director Shalini Kantayya, data journalism scholar Meredith Broussard, and artist/researcher Beth Coleman delve further into recent developments in the fight against algorithmic bias, and look to the role of surveillance technologies in perpetuating racism and inequality.

Transcript

Download a transcript of the discussion between Broussard, Coleman, and Kantayya.

Presenter Biographies

Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and the author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting, with a particular interest in using data analysis for social good. A former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she has also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs and the MIT Media Lab. Her features and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, and other outlets.

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Beth Coleman researches experimental digital media, and specializes in race theory, game culture, and literary studies. She is currently working on two books and has previously published Hello, Avatar: Rise of the Networked Generation, a critically acclaimed book examining the many modes of online identity and how users live on the continuum between the virtual and the real. She has also curated numerous art exhibits and media installations within North America and in Europe. Her current research investigates aspects of human narrative and digital data in the engagement of global cities, including aspects of locative media, mobile media, and smart cities.

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Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya premiered Coded Bias at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She directed for the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, which was broadcast globally in June 2017. Her debut documentary, Catching the Sun, premiered at the LA Film Festival and was named a New York Times "Critics’ Pick." Catching the Sun was released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016, with executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio, and was nominated for the Environmental Media Association Award for Best Documentary. Kantayya is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fulbright Scholar, and an Associate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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Transcript

Presenter Biographies

Coded Bias: Race, Technology, and Algorithms

Video Documentation

Discussion between Meredith Broussard, Beth Coleman, and Shalini Kantayya accompanying the screening of Coded Bias.