Presentation
The AI + Society Initiative and the eQuality Project present, in collaboration with the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and the Autonomy through Cyberjustice Technologies Partnership:
Coded Bias explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab Joy Buolamwini’s discovery that facial recognition software is embedded with biases surrounding race and gender, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern bias in algorithms.
Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence increasingly governs our liberties? And what are the consequences for the people AI is biased against? When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that most facial-recognition software does not accurately identify darker-skinned faces and the faces of women, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms. As it turns out, artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.
Following registration, participants will receive connection details to watch the documentary in advance of the conversation on March 3.
About the Speakers
Shalini Kantayya is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fulbright Scholar, and a finalist for the ABC Disney DGA Directing Program. She is an Associate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Her feature documentary, Coded Bias, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She directed an episode of the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, executive produced by Ron Howard, broadcast globally in 2017. Her debut feature film Catching the Sun, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick. Catching the Sun 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.
sava saheli singh is the eQuality-Scotiabank Postdoctoral Fellow on AI and Surveillance at the University of Ottawa.
The eQuality Annual Lecture is made possible thanks to the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Scotiabank Fund for the AI + Society Initiative at the University of Ottawa.