Unmasking AI by Dr. Joy Buolamwini

It was in 2021 when I came across Coded Bias documentary directed by Shalini Kantayya in Netflix. I had been expanding my following of different groups on AI Ethics and the recommendation to watch this came through. The title itself was something that already resonated with me, having been investigating AI explainability and trustworthiness. The documentary and what follows after is probably well known to many involved in the AI Ethics world. Dr. Joy Buolamwini brought to the surface issues with data and data bias and the obscure world of AI algorithmic bias to the masses. But most of all, this film that involved many other researchers, made real the consequences that these have on human beings, parts of society and our concept of humanity, fairness, justice and right to privacy overall.

Last year, her book Unmasking AI was released and I got my hands on it at the end of 2023 as a Christmas present (yes, I am that type of girl!). When I got my quiet time to sit and read, I have been grabbing this amazing book that details the journey that Dr. Buolamwini went through during her time at MIT starting from the simple fact that her dark tone face was not detected by an algorithm but a light tone face was. This starts her incredible journey through detecting and analysing bias and her strong message and voice thereafter. One of the quotes in her book taken from Audre Lorde “your silence will not protect you” is striking in its simplicity and implications and consequences.

What immediately grabs you is how Dr. Buolamwini is such a talented poet and storyteller, taking technical and no technical audience on a journey, where she emanates sincerity in her personal account of bias and the dangers of it. I also admire how she credits the different people that made an impact in her journey, how they influenced her and her direction. Not only that but through her volunteering and then her mentoring of other researchers she has been giving back to others support that reflects her generosity.

My takeaways from this book? Many! But here are a few that I am taking into my journey:

• What a human being is and represents and aspires to be, cannot and should not be devolved of technological developments. Bias and discrimination can come in many forms. One that is being expanded at speed is facial recognition. But what if you did not have access to some services because your face is not detected by an algorithm? What consequences might that have? What if the algorithm cannot distinguish between individuals or even genders? When powerful tools such as AI are not developed responsibly, consequences are real for all and society as a whole.
• Bias is an unfortunate fact, it is present in us as individuals and societies and this we still need to understand, face and resolve as human beings. This means, we capture data in a biased way, we use biased in data to train AI, and biased in AI algorithms to give us predictions. These biases that might be present in small pockets, can get conglomerated, institutionalised, engrained and scaled at a speed and dimension never seen before.
• The richness and diversity of our human race is to be celebrated and recognised by all of us and by algorithms. This richness does not fit with stereotypes. But stereotypes fit very well with AI algorithms. Gender is another biased and flawed issue with many algorithms, specially within some ethnicities. Dr. Buolamwini refers to the poem by Sojourner Truth Ain’t I a woman? and transform it into an amazing one of her own AI, ain’t I a woman? Can machines ever see our grandmothers as we knew them?

Our face is part of our own self and our identity. If our face is captured without consent, used as data for training algorithms, used for purposes we do not know about, misused, leaked, profiled, boxed in categories that will very probably be wrong and most of all, decisions on our lives taken depending on these algorithms, surely “our silence is not going to protect us”.

Go and read this book!

Carolina