Resources to support discussion and exploration.
No Such Thing as Neutral: Racism and Technology Design is a workshop offered at Smith College as part of Cromwell Day, Tuesday, November 10, 2020, with Jen Malkowski, associate professor of Film and Media Studies, and Yasmin Eisenhauer, associate director of Learning, Research and Technology
About the Workshop
Focusing on the racial biases built into technologies, this workshop set out to consider the harms and inequities of design processes that consistently center on white technology users.
- case studies from media history (the racist foundations of photography and film equipment design)
- to our current digital moment (facial recognition software, Google search algorithms, Zoom meeting conventions).
Participants shared ideas for how tech industries could operate more inclusively.
Resources
Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racismNoble, Safiya Umoja. 2018. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt9w5.
FC JSTOR ebook
Beyond hashtags : racial politics and black digital networksCall Number: SC Annex Stacks / P94.5.A37 F57 2019Sarah Florini. New York : New York University Press, [2019]
preview: Google Books
Weapons of math destruction : how big data increases inequality and threatens democracyCall Number: SC Annex Stacks / QA76.9.B45 O64 2016O'Neil, Cathy. 2016. New York : Crown
preview: Google Books
White: Essays on race and cultureCall Number: SC Annex Stacks / HT1575 .D93 1997Richard Dyer. 1997. London ; New York : Routledge. 2013 ebook, Taylor & Francis ebook.
preview: Taylor & Francis or Google Books
- How 'Insecure' lights its actors so wellMicMedia. [ca. 2011]. In Facebook [News & Media Website page]. On HBO's Insecure, black features pop — and this is why. [video, about 2 minutes]
- The Algorithmic Justice League [AJL]an organization that combines art and research to illuminate the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence
- Data 4 Black LivesA movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people.
- Federal Study of Top facial recognition algorithms finds 'empirical evidence' of biasby Jon Porter. The Verge, December 20, 2019
Coded bias [website]Shalini Kantayya's documentary follows MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that many facial recognition technologies fail more often on darker-skinned faces, and delves into an investigation of widespread bias in artificial intelligence.
Workshop Presenters
Yasmin Chin Eisenhauer & Jennifer Malkowski
