Shalini Kantayya | US / UK / China
92 min | Feature | Partial Subtitles
In partnership with the Guelph Black Heritage Society
Following the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that most facial recognition software is biased and does not see dark-skinned faces or women with accuracy, director Shalini Kantayya begins to uncover what other types of bias are present in the machine learning algorithms that impact us all. Through Joy’s transformation from scientist to tireless advocate, Coded Bias sheds light on the impacts of AI on civil rights and democracy. But can the best of our humanity triumph over the worst of our human biases encoded into machines?
SHALINI KANTAYYA’A—Director Shalini Kantayya premiered Coded Bias at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She directed for the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, Executive Produced by Ron Howard, broadcast globally in June 2017. Her debut, Catching the Sun, premiered at the LA Film Festival and was named a NY Times Critics’ Pick. Catching the Sun released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016 with Executive Producer Leonardo DiCaprio, and was nominated for the Environmental Media Association Award for Best Documentary. Kantayya is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fulbright Scholar, and an Associate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.