Coded Bias

Coded Bias (2020) is Shalini Kantayya's documentary, available to watch online on iFILM. It opens with something small: MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini finds that face-recognition software won't register her features until she puts on a white mask. The algorithm was simply never trained on dark skin.

From that glitch, Buolamwini pulls a much larger thread. The film traces how machine models already decide who gets a loan, who gets into a building, whom the police flag as a suspect — and how often those calls inherit human prejudice. Mathematician Cathy O'Neil, journalist Meredith Broussard and campaigner Silkie Carlo weigh in, while Joy carries her case all the way to Congress, pushing for the first U.S. legislation against algorithmic bias.

A documentary for anyone who wants to grasp why "neutral code" often isn't, told without jargon or doom-mongering. Stream Coded Bias (2020) online on iFILM.