Joy Buolamwini

Joy Buolamwini is a leading activist for algorithmic justice and a poet of code who uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of AI.

Intro:

Joy Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League to fight the coded gaze - harmful bias in artificial intelligence. At the MIT Media Lab, she pioneered techniques that are now leading to increased transparency in the use of facial analysis technology globally. Buolamwini established the inaugural IEEE working group to create the first international standards for facial analysis technology. Her TED Talk on algorithmic bias has been viewed over 1 million times. More than 230 articles in over 37 countries have been written about her Gender Shades thesis work which uncovered large accuracy disparities in commercial AI services. Based on her work she was invited to write an op-ed for the New York Times on the dangers of facial analysis technology.

Buolamwini’s Videos:

Selected AI Artworks:

Buolamwini on fighting algorithmic bias in artificial intelligence:

“A.I. systems are shaped by the priorities and prejudices — conscious and unconscious — of the people who design them, a phenomenon that I refer to as “the coded gaze.” Research has shown that automated systems that are used to inform decisions about sentencing produce results that are biased against black people and that those used for selecting the targets of online advertising can discriminate based on race and gender.”

Buolamwini’s Background:

Joy produces media that makes daughters of diasporas dream and sons of privilege pause. Her short film, The Coded Gaze: Unmasking Algorithmic Bias, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and her pilot of the Journey To Code training series debuted at the Vatican. Joy won the 2017 Grand Prize of a national contest inspired by the critically acclaimed film Hidden Figures in recognition for her impact journey video essay. With support from the Ford Foundation she created "AI, Ain't I A Woman?" the first spoken word visual poem focused on failures of artificial intelligence on iconic women including Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama.

Buolamwini is a Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, and Google Anita Borg Scholar recognized as a Tech Review 35 under 35 honoree. She holds master's degrees from Oxford University and MIT and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her final degree will be a PhD from MIT.

Buolamwini’s Selected Exhibitions and Talks:

• 2019 AI: More than Human, Barbican Centre

• 2019 Understanding AI, Ars Electronica

• 2019 Nine Moments for Now, Harvard University

• 2019 AVATARS // Future Exhibit, Nave Gallery

• 2019 AI, Ain’t I a Woman?,  Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

• 2019 Compassion through Computation: Fighting Algorithmic Bias, World Economic Forum

• 2018 We're Training Machines to be Racist. The Fight Against Bias is On, WIRED UK

• 2017 How I’m fighting bias in algorithms, TED

• 2017 Limited Vision: The Undersampled Majority, AI Now Institute

Buolamwini’s Selected Press:

• 2019 Amazon is Pushing Facial Technology That a Study Says Could Be Biased, New York Times

• 2019 A.I. Experts Question Amazon’s Facial Recognition Technology, New York Times

• 2019 Amazon Schooled on AI Facial Technology By Turing Award Winner, Bloomberg

• 2019 Meet the woman fighting racist, sexist AI algorithms - and taking on the tech giants, Telegraph

• 2019 Response: Racial and Gender bias in Amazon Recognition — Commercial AI System for Analyzing Faces, Medium

• 2019 The Best Algorithms Still Struggle to Recognize Black Faces Equally, WIRED

• 2018 When the Robot Doesn’t See Dark Skin, New York Times

Learn more about Joy Buolamwini:

• Buolamwini’s website: https://www.poetofcode.com/

• Buolamwini’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jovialjoy

• AJL’s (Algorithmic Justice League’s) Webiste: https://www.ajlunited.org/