An exploration of the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery of racial bias in facial recognition algorithms.
With pain in our movie hearts we need to inform you that, due to the recently tightened Covid-19 measures, the InScience Film Festival in Natlab Eindhoven has to be canceled. There is a bright spot though; you can watch most films of the InScience Film Festival online.
Language: English, no subtitles
Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence (AI) 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, AI is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.
Director Shalini Kantayya illuminates our mass misconceptions about AI and emphasizes the urgent need for legislative protection. From facial scanning used for policing and surveillance to automated HR systems that mirror and magnify workplace prejudices, these technologies are created with fundamentally biased building blocks. Emboldened by these remarkable and troubling discoveries, Buolamwini charts a way forward by joining ranks with other concerned experts to form a justice league committed to increasing awareness of the biases that underlie the technology that shapes our lives yet is largely free from legislative and public scrutiny.
‘An eye-opening account of the dangers of AI’ – New Scientist (review)
After the documentary
After the documentary, there will be an interview and Q&A with professor Mykola Pechenizkiy. Mykola Pechenizkiy is a Full Professor at the department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where he holds the Data Mining Chair. His core expertise and research interests are in predictive analytics and knowledge discovery from evolving data, and in their application to real-world problems in industry, medicine and education. One of his many research interests is ethics/discrimination-awareness.
InScience Film Festival
This program is a collaboration with Natlab Eindhoven and InScience film festival. InScience is one of the biggest science film festivals in Europe and is unique to The Netherlands. The festival focuses on the interface between film, science and society. The program consists of science films, debates and an educational program for children and young adults.