Coded Bias

Film phase:Completed

SYNOPSIS

Coded Bias explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her subsequent journey to push for the first-ever US legislation to govern against bias in artificial intelligence. The documentary aims to shine a light on the threat artificial intelligence poses to civil rights and democracy.

Coded Bias is a participant of Project: Hatched 2020.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Shalini Kantayy looks directly at the camera and smiles. The wind blows her hair. Portrait in black and white.Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya directed the season finale episode for the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, a series profiling trailblazing scientists transforming the future, executive produced by Ron Howard, broadcast globally in June 2017. Her debut feature film Catching the Sun, about the race for a clean energy future, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was named a New York 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. Her feature, Coded Bias, premieres in US Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.