Coded Bias: Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance and our Civil Rights

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? Most facial-recognition software does not accurately identify darker-skinned faces and the faces of women. Join us for a conversation with Shalini Kantaya, Director/Producer of the new film Coded Bias and data journalist Meredith Broussard as we delve into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms. Artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.

Click here to watch the trailer for Coded Bias.

Inspired by the Crosscut Festival, the At-Large speaker series features in-depth conversations with renowned journalists and authors about the big issues and big ideas making headlines across the country and here at home.

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About the speakers:

Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She directed for the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, executive produced by Ron Howard and broadcast globally in June 2017. Her debut, 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.

Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology, and the author of “Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World.” Her academic research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting and ethical AI, with a particular interest in using data analysis for social good. She appeared in the 2020 documentary Coded Bias, an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival that was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She is an affiliate faculty member at the Moore Sloan Data Science Environment at the NYU Center for Data Science, a 2019 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, and her work has been supported by New America, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, and the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School. 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, The New York Times, Slate, and other outlets.

Mark Baumgarten is the managing editor at Crosscut where he oversees a newsroom of dedicated reporters, producers and editors telling the stories of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. He is also the host of the Crosscut Talks podcast.