Fireside Chat Summary and Insights: Unmasking AI Book Celebration with Dr. Joy Buolamwini in conversation with Sinead Bovell
All Tech Is Human was honored to partner to host Founder of Algorithmic Justice League Dr. Joy Buolamwini in conversation with WAYE Founder Sinead Bovell to celebrate the release of Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines on Tuesday, October 31, at Ford Foundation in New York City.
The book release celebration and fireside chat was a collaboration between All Tech Is Human, Algorithmic Justice League, Ford Foundation, Random House, and The Institute of Global Politics (IGP) at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.
The following excerpts have been lightly edited for readability.
Fireside Chat Key Overview
What is the Coded Gaze?
“I's really a question of who has the power to shape the priorities of technology, but also the prejudices that get embedded. It was Halloween. I had a white mask around and I was working on an art project that used face tracking and it didn't detect my face that well until I put on the white mask and I was like, dang, [Frantz] Fanon already said it. Black skin, white mask. I just didn't think it'd be so literal.”
What is X coded?
“Those who are condemned, convicted, otherwise exploited, or excluded by algorithmic systems. The focus is how do we liberate the X coded? How do we actually make sure that the benefits of artificial intelligence are for all of us? Especially marginalized communities and not just the privileged few. “
How does algorithmic bias, or being part of X coded, impact our lives?
“Amazon had a hiring tool where they showed that if you had a women's college listed, you got deducted. There have been other hiring tools that have been evaluated. If your name is Jared, you play lacrosse, you might get some points, right? So that's one kind of an example. I also think about AI systems within medicine. And so you have these race based clinical algorithms that aren't actually based on the science and people get denied vital organs. So that's another space in which it can creep up. Education as well. You might be flagged as having used the chatbot. They show studies that actually, you might be flagged not because you were cheating, but English - like me - could be your second language. So those are some of the everyday examples in which people get X coded. And then my work has focused a lot on facial recognition technologies.
I think about people like Porcha Woodruff, who was eight months pregnant when she was falsely arrested by AI powered facial recognition misidentification. So sitting in a holding cell, having contractions, when they finally let her out, she had to be rushed to the emergency room. Right? So that's the type of algorithmic discrimination putting two lives in danger.
What does it mean to be a poet of code?
“I wanted to move from performance metrics to performance art to actually humanize what it means to see those types of labels. And that's what led to AI Ain't I a Woman.
At first I thought it would be an explainer video like I've done with other projects. And then I was talking to a friend and they said, can you describe what it felt like?
And as I started to describe it, he said, “that sounds like a poem.” So the next morning, I woke up with these words in my head. My heart smiles as I bask in their legacies, knowing their lives have altered many destinies. In her eyes, I see my mother's poise. In her face, I glimpse my auntie's grace. I was like, ooh, something's happening. Right? So I kept going on, right? Can machines ever see my queens as I view them? Can machines ever see our grandmothers as we knew them? And the descriptions you just shared, right? So to see Sojourner Truth labeled a clean shaven adult male, those are the queens I was talking about. And that led to what my PhD ended up focusing on, which was both algorithmic audits, like the gender shades paper, which showed performance metrics. But also evocative audits like AI anti woman, which humanizes what AI harms look like or feel like.
About Unmasking AI
Unmasking AI goes beyond the headlines about existential risks produced by Big Tech. It is the remarkable story of how Buolamwini uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze”—the evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products—and how she galvanized the movement to prevent AI harms by founding the Algorithmic Justice League. Applying an intersectional lens to both the tech industry and the research sector, she shows how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and therefore vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools. Computers, she reminds us, are reflections of both the aspirations and the limitations of the people who create them.
Encouraging experts and non-experts alike to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”
About Dr. Joy Buolamwini
Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a groundbreaking researcher, and a renowned speaker. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Time, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and The Atlantic. As the Poet of Code, she creates art to illuminate the impact of artificial intelligence on society and advises world leaders on preventing AI harms. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rhodes Scholarship, the inaugural Morals & Machines Prize, and the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Her MIT research on facial recognition technologies is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias. Born in Canada to Ghanaian immigrants, Buolamwini lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About Sinead Bovell
Sinead Bovell is a futurist and the founder of WAYE, an organization that prepares youth for a future with advanced technologies, with a focus on non-traditional and minority markets. Sinead is a regular tech commentator for CNN, talk shows, and morning shows; she's been dubbed the A.I. educator for the “non-nerds” by Vogue Magazine; and to date has educated over 200, 000 young entrepreneurs on the future of technology.
Sinead is an 8x United Nations speaker; she has given formal addresses to presidents, royalty and Fortune 500 leaders on topics ranging from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence, and currently serves as a strategic advisor to the United Nations International Telecommunication Union on digital inclusion.
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