Welcome to Independent Lens.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Tonight, we bring you a documentary
that the Hollywood Reporter calls
"a chilling plunge into Orwellian reality"
with the film Coded Bias.
A few years ago, researcher Joy Buolamwini
made a startling discovery...
that facial recognition software
often times did not recognize dark-skinned people.
It happened when the MIT grad student was doing an art project
and could not get her computer to recognize her face
unless she wore a white mask.
What Buolamwini learned
upon further investigation of facial recognition algorithms,
also known as "invisible decision makers,"
was that what was an irritating inconvenience to her,
had much more precarious ramifications
to other people of color,
such as deciding who got healthcare
or who got sent to prison.
Director Shalini Kantayya says
she knew very little about this topic
but became interested when she learned that
leading this battle against electronic racism,
are primarily woman of color,
who Kantayya affectionately refers to
as "bad ass mathematicians."
Their challenge?
For legislation to stay ahead of technology.
This may sound like an uphill battle,
but progress has been made.
IBM recently changed their facial recognition software
after biases were pointed out by the star of tonight's film,
Joy Buolamwini.
Coded Bias starts now
on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.