Unmasking AI: A Story of Hope and Justice in a World of Algorithms

"Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the self-described "Poet of Code" who has had a lifelong passion for computer science, engineering, and art-disciplines that, she felt, pushed the boundaries of reality. After tinkering with robotics as a high school student in Tennessee, to developing mobile apps in Zambia as a Fulbright fellow, Buolamwini eventually found herself at MIT. As a graduate student at the "Future Factory," Buolamwini's groundbreaking research revealed that AI systems-from leading tech companies-were consistently failing on non-male, non-white bodies. In Unmasking AI, Buolamwini goes beyond the news headlines about racism, colorism, and sexism in Big Tech to tell the remarkable story of how she uncovered what she calls "the coded gaze"-evidence of racial and gender bias in tech-and galvanized the movement to prevent AI harms by founding the Algorithmic Justice League. Applying an intersectional lens to both tech industry and research sector, Buolamwini shows how race, gender, and ability bias can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity vulnerable in our AI-dependent world. Computers, she reminds us, are reflections of both the aspirations and the limitations of the people who create them"--