Reading Room

Want to read more about the cultural implications of algorithms — from YouTube search to Galileo? Wondering what algorithmic bias is and how people are trying to grapple with it? Here’s an assortment of links that may be of interest:

Academic and professional publications

David Danks & Alex London: Algorithmic Bias in Autonomous Systems
Sophie Bishop: Anxiety, panic and self-optimization: Inequalities and the YouTube algorithm
Nick Seaver: Algorithms as Culture: Some tactics for the ethnography of algorithmic systems
Megan Garcia: Racist in the Machine: The Disturbing Implications of Algorithmic Bias
Solon Barocas and Andrew D. Selbst: California Law Review: Big Data’s Disparate Impact
Dan McQuillan: Data Science as Machinic Neoplatonism
Keith Kirkpatrick: Battling Algorithmic Bias
Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen: Excavating AI
Safiya Umoja Noble: Algorithms of Oppression — How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Stepan Komkov & Aleksandr Petiushko. AdvHat: Real-world adversarial attack on ArcFace Face ID system
MIT AI Ethics Education Curriculum (Middle school students consider algorithmic bias and propose YouTube redesigns.)
Joy Buolamwini: “Response: Racial and Gender bias in Amazon Rekognition — Commercial AI System for Analyzing Faces.” (Discusses and links to Buolamwini’s research.)
Amy Alexander: SVEN (Surveillance Video Entertainment Network): Looking Back and Forward
Amy Alexander: About… Software, Surveillance, Scariness, Subjectivity
(and SVEN) (2006/2008).
Originally published by Springer. End of pp. 470-471 I write about algorithmic bias mid-2000’s style: Google PageRank (search algorithms) and IRS.
Amy Alexander: The Algorithm is the Message: What the Robot Saw.
Amy Alexander: What the Robot Saw. Paper for XCoAx 2020, 8th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X.

Non-academic publications

Anouk Vleugels, The Next Web: Want AI to be less biased? Cherish your female programmers 2018
Paul Mozur, NYTimes: One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority 2019
Jillur Quddus, Digital Leaders: The Future of AI; Bias Amplification & Algorithmic Determinism 2018
Zeynep Tufekci, NYTimes: YouTube, the Great Radicalizer 2018
Kelly Weill, Daily Beast: YouTube Tweaks Algorithm to Fight 9/11 Truthers, Flat Earthers, Miracle Cures 2019
Tom Simonite, Wired: How Coders Are Fighting Bias in Facial Recognition Software 2018
Raymond Biesinger, Politico: Is your Software Racist? 2018
Jackie Snow, MIT Technology Review: Bias already exists in search engine results, and it’s only going to get worse. Interview with Safiya Umoja Noble. 2018
James Vincent, The Verge: Google ‘fixed’ its racist algorithm by removing gorillas from its image-labeling tech 2018
Tom Simonite, Wired: Machines Learn a Sexist View of Women 2017
Sharon Begley, Stat News: Racial bias skews algorithms widely used to guide care from heart surgery to birth, study finds. 2020
Jack Nicas, New York Times: YouTube Cut Down Misinformation. Then It Boosted Fox News. 2020
Guillaume Chaslot
Joy Buolamwini

Here’s the famous, but controversial, ProPublica study about Northpointe’s recidivism prediction software (used to figure out who gets out on bail, probation, etc).