Coded Bias
IN HER first semester as a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, Joy Buolamwini encountered a peculiar problem. Commercial face-recognition software, which detected her light-skinned classmates just fine, couldn’t “see” her face. Until, that is, she donned a white plastic mask in frustration.
Coded Bias is a timely, thought-provoking documentary from director Shalini Kantayya. It follows Buolamwini’s journey to uncover racial and sexist bias in face-recognition software and other artificial intelligence systems. Such technology is increasingly used to make important decisions, but many of the algorithms are a black box.
“I hope this will be a kind of Inconvenient Truth of algorithmic justice, a film that explains the science and ethics around an issue of critical importance to the future of humanity,” Kantayya told New Scientist.