Joy Buolamwini is a computer scientist and digital activist who describes herself as “the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, an award-winning researcher, and poet of code.” Her work made the bias of commercial AI systems concrete and impossible to ignore.
She founded the Algorithmic Justice League after a striking experience: face-detection software failed to register her dark-skinned face until she put on a white mask. That episode led to her landmark Gender Shades study at the MIT Media Lab, which audited commercial gender-classification systems and found they performed far worse on darker-skinned women than on lighter-skinned men. The research pushed companies to revise their products and helped catalyze city and corporate moratoriums on facial recognition.
Buolamwini is the author of the bestselling book “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines” and is featured in the Netflix documentary “Coded Bias.” She has advised policymakers and world leaders on algorithmic harms, summing up her mission as “fighting for algorithmic justice is my calling.”