Scientist, engineer and artist Dr. Joy Buolamwini discusses her book UNMASKING AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines. In it, she uncovers what she calls “the coded gaze”, evidence of encoded racial and gender bias, discrimination and exclusion in tech products. On the basis of her research, Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) to show how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools. Encouraging everyone to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”
Joy Buolamwini, born in Canada to Ghanaian parents, now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After tinkering with robotics in high school she developed mobile apps in Zambia as a Fulbright fellow. Buolamwini then followed her lifelong passion for computer science, engineering, and art to MIT in 2015, where she did groundbreaking research as a graduate student. In addition to being a renowned speaker, she is founder of the A.J.L. Her writing has been featured in TIME, The NYT, Harvard Business Review, and The Atlantic.
Amanda Palmer is a best-selling author, songwriter, mother, feminist, community leader, pianist and ukulele-enthusiast who simultaneously embraces and explodes traditional frameworks of music, theatre, and art. She has taught at both Wesleyan and Bard Universities, written for The Guardian and The New Statesman and other press outlets of note, and she is a long-time affiliate of the Berkman Klein Institute for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Evan Greer is a trans activist, writer, and musician based in Boston. She's the director of digital rights group Fight for the Future and writes regularly about the intersection of tech policy and human rights for the Washington Post, Time, NBC News, Wired, and CNN.
Her last album Spotify is Surveillance was released by Don Giovanni Records and Get Better Records and featured by NPR, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. The video for her song "Surveillance Capitalism" was launched as part of a campaign targeting Spotify over a creepy voice recognition patent. While Greer is perhaps best known for her work as an organizer, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine calls her a "heck of a guitar player," and her recordings have evolved from riot-folk roots to a more layered indie pop sound with an anarcho-punk soul. Fight for the Future, perhaps best known for helping organize the largest online protests in human history that defeated SOPA/PIPA, have led a number of high profile campaigns targeting the use of facial recognition and other AI surveillance in music venues, and Greer has written extensively about the failure of copyright maximalism to benefit independent and marginalized artists. As a speaker and musician, Greer has shared stages with folks like Pete Seeger, Talib Kweli, Against Me!, Eve 6, Chumbawamba, Ezra Furman, Immortal Technique, and Billy Bragg.
