In 2015, Joy Buolamwini, a graduate student at MIT, was developing a device called the Aspire Mirror. Onlookers would stare into a webcam and then see a reflection on their face of something that inspires them. At least, that was the plan. But Buolamwini quickly noticed that the facial recognition software was struggling to track her face — until she put on a white mask. Buolamwini began an investigation into algorithmic injustices that took her all the way to the US Congress. Her journey is the central thread in Coded Bias, a documentary directed by Shalini Kantayya that launched on Netflix this week. “I didn’t know I actually had…
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