I am glad we have spent some time thinking about the everyday consequences of data surveillance, and I think that discussing the “Screening Surveillance” films has been a great way to get at the issues (moving beyond mere conceptual analysis) as we start to think about how this ubiquitous reality is shaping our everyday lives. […]
Ruha Benjamin’s Catching Our Breath: Critical Race STS and the Carceral Imagination does an excellent job in discussing the many racial inequalities that can coexist with developing technologies. It was a point that was brought up before with AI face-scanning and criminal record analysis, but this particular argument is framed around the “proliferation and intensification […]
Joy Buolamwini’s TED Talk “How I am fighting algorithms with bias” discusses the biases and discriminatory encounters that individuals of color face when using technology. It is disheartening that we are in 2021, and we have yet to find recognition software that can detect diverse faces. Buloamwini provided her experiences with completing assignments during her […]
This has been a pretty interesting week, but it is also the week where I’ve managed to hit my “semester slump.” It’s becoming more and more difficult for me to sit down and want to type everything out, and all my thoughts and feelings are starting to really box me into this perpetually tired and […]
The content for this week was interesting on so many different levels. First, I want to touch on the TED talk regarding algorithms and Bias. Dr. Zamora, Alan and Ryan would be the only ones to remember this, but I actually presented on this topic last year in this class. I thoroughly enjoyed it because […]
Greetings to all eyes that have fell upon this blog. I wanted to take a little bit of time to offer each of you some advice. I know, advice is like opinions and everyone has one. There is another saying, but it’s language is inappropriate for the intended purpose. I ask that you please be […]
I’d like to start this week’s blog by sharing the gif I made of a scene from the Screening Surveillance film “Frames.” This short film shows a dystopian society in which surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology track your every move. It presents an uncomfortably plausible future (in fact, the social credit system the video […]
We want change to have an end goal. Even the language we use around change lends itself to sustaining this hopeful delusion: working towards a more ______ society, becoming a more ______ person, creating a world where ______ is no longer an issue. The problem isn’t the desire found in these visions of change, […]
As I began to watch the video, “Viral Justice: Pandemics, Policing and Portals,” I wasn’t sure if I was part of the target audience. At first I wasn’t really sure who the actual audience for the piece would be. But then I further listened to what Ms. Benjamin had to say I could totally feel […]
This week’s blog is all about MIT graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s journey and realization in the world of algorithmic bias. One would assume that bias can only occur with sectors such as jobs, education, etc. but unfortunately, with the need for software’s comes the issues of skin color and the lack of inclusion. Buolamwini worked […]