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Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines Hardcover – October 31, 2023

by Joy Buolamwini (Author)

242 ratings

Editors' pick Best Nonfiction

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The conscience of the AI revolution” (Fortune) explains how we’ve arrived at an era of AI harms and oppression, and what we can do to avoid its pitfalls.

“AI is not coming, it’s here. If we answer the beautiful call inside these pages, we can decide who we are going to be and how we’re going to use technology in service of what it means to be fully human.”—Brené Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead

A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Shortlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award

To most of us, it seems like recent developments in artificial intelligence emerged out of nowhere to pose unprecedented threats to humankind. But to Dr. Joy Buolamwini, who has been at the forefront of AI research, this moment has been a long time in the making.

After tinkering with robotics as a high school student in Memphis and then developing mobile apps in Zambia as a Fulbright fellow, Buolamwini followed her lifelong passion for computer science, engineering, and art to MIT in 2015. As a graduate student at the “Future Factory,” she did groundbreaking research that exposed widespread racial and gender bias in AI services from tech giants across the world.

Unmasking AI goes beyond the headlines about existential risks produced by Big Tech. It is the remarkable story of how Buolamwini uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze”—the evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products—and how she galvanized the movement to prevent AI harms by founding the Algorithmic Justice League. Applying an intersectional lens to both the tech industry and the research sector, she shows how racism, sexism, colorism, and ableism can overlap and render broad swaths of humanity “excoded” and therefore vulnerable in a world rapidly adopting AI tools. Computers, she reminds us, are reflections of both the aspirations and the limitations of the people who create them.

Encouraging experts and non-experts alike to join this fight, Buolamwini writes, “The rising frontier for civil rights will require algorithmic justice. AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”

From the Publisher

Brene Brown says, “an urgent call that changed me”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A triumph in a literary work about artificial intelligence.”—Business Insider

“[Joy] Buolamwini’s book recounts her journey to become one of the nation’s preeminent scholars and critics of artificial intelligence . . . and offers readers a compelling, digestible guide to some of the most pressing issues in the field.”—Los Angeles Times

“Buolamwini looks at the social implications of the technology and warns that biases in facial analysis systems could harm millions of people—especially if they reinforce existing stereotypes.” —NPR

“Unmasking AI tackles these issues head on and offers tangible, clever, and achievable solutions. Buolamwini leverages the brilliance of her scientific training and the compassion of lived experience to offer deep insights about how we can advance tech and society in tandem.”—Stacey Abrams, author and political leader

“This revelatory book exposes the myriad, deeply ingrained biases encoded into facial recognition and other ‘trusted’ AI systems, pushing us to confront our blind trust in the machines that are taking over our lives.”—Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize winner, CEO and president of Rappler

“In a world plagued by AI harms and threats to our civil rights, Dr. Joy Buolamwini has been an essential figure in bringing irresponsible, profit-hungry tech giants to their knees. If you’re going to read only one book about AI, this should be it.”—Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation

“Joy Buolamwini is a unique and powerful intellectual force, and this book explains why. We are honored to follow her on each step of her journey from an earnest and diligent grad student to an outspoken and celebrated role model for algorithmic justice, rooting for her and likewise for our combined future.”—Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction

“Unmasking AI shows Dr. Joy Buolamwini’s unmatched ability to break down complex topics for a wide audience. This book is yet another artifact of her excellence.”—Timnit Gebru, founder of Distributed AI Research Institute and co-founder of Black in AI

“Through stories that are both personal and deeply relevant for all of humanity, Dr. Joy Buolamwini brings wit and clarity to the punishing reality of AI bias. Unmasking AI illuminates achievable paths for the world’s future that are far more promising and just than our current trajectories.”—Megan Smith, former chief technology officer of the United States, member of the National Academy of Engineering, and CEO of shift7

“This is as much a memoir as it is a clarion call for change. Unmasking AI belongs alongside Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction and Safiya Umoja Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression as essential warnings for our time. It’s an important corrective to our unquestioning embrace of technology.”—Booklist, starred review

“[A] trenchant debut . . . a vital examination of AI’s pitfalls.”—Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a groundbreaking researcher, and a renowned speaker. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Time, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and The Atlantic. As the Poet of Code, she creates art to illuminate the impact of artificial intelligence on society and advises world leaders on preventing AI harms. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rhodes Scholarship, the inaugural Morals & Machines Prize, and the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Her MIT research on facial recognition technologies is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias. Born in Canada to Ghanaian immigrants, Buolamwini lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Daughter of Art and Science

I am the daughter of art and science. My mother, Frema the Akan, is the first artist I knew. As a child, I sat next to her as she filled canvas after canvas with powerful colors and made creative ideas reality. Art supplies littered our garage, mixed among drawing books, portfolios, artificial fruits, and flowers. My mother explored human conditions of the heart. Her work, she told me, was aimed at moving people to experience healing, to glimpse the divine, to be enraptured and swept into another place of awareness. I would observe her, deep in focus, considering the next stroke to apply to an evolving piece of art. Her experiments and works in progress were a constant presence for me. Seeing her sculpt, paint, draw, and etch out art was a delight to my senses. Her four-foot paintings towered over me, and the smells of charcoal and turpentine tantalized my nose. Our world was an open invitation for me to try my hand at creative expression. I soon had sketchbooks filled with whatever had recently caught my interest—ramps, skateboards, mustangs, animated characters, guitars, and amplifiers. My mother’s voice of encouragement, a constant echo, gave me the audacity to explore my capacities and my curiosity. But artistic experiments were not the only ones that peppered my childhood.

My father, Dr. John Buolamwini, is the first scientist I knew. He worked on topics that would take time for me to learn to pronounce: medical chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences, and computer- aided drug discovery using neural nets. Trips to his lab were fun and full of many things not to touch, a lesson I often learned the hard way. Chalk is not for eating. Dry ice burns. Walking to his office I would see hallways filled with scientific posters as he waved to colleagues and students. And then if I was lucky, while he worked on the latest grant, research paper, or other desk work, I got to play on one of the computers. When he walked to the freezer in his lab I trailed him like a shadow. He put on purple gloves, pulled out a tray, and placed it on a lab bench. I struggled to get the oversized gloves on my hands as my dad beamed at my efforts. Once I was protected, he placed a pipette in my grasp and gently applied pressure on my right thumb with his. Liquid drops bathed the cancer cells beneath our cradled hands, while my eyes widened with fascination and his beard tickled my head. Next to the lab bench sat more computers. He would show me machines linked to concepts like flow cytometry. I would look at the squiggles on the computers that I would later learn to call graphs.

Like my mother, he was working on experiments that required bold curiosity to ask unexplored questions. But while my mother asked questions of colors, my father asked questions of cells. In the midst of their explorations, I began to ask questions about computers. For instance, how did the images that I saw on the scientific papers come to be? They looked like abstract paintings to me. My dad showed me the software on his huge Silicon Graphics computers that would create these images containing ringlets and rods of bright reds and blues, representing different protein structures. The goal of feeding the cells, designing medicinal drugs on the computer, running all the tests, and scrutinizing the squiggles was to help people who were struggling with different conditions, from heart disease to breast cancer. He showed me the software to introduce me to chemistry, but I found myself more and more enamored with the machines themselves. I quickly found games like Doom and Cycle that came preloaded. I listened to the whirs and beeps of a dial-up connection. In that office, I opened Netscape, my first browser experience into a portal I would later learn was the internet.

And so it was that, surrounded by art and science from a very young age, I was emboldened to explore, to ask questions, to dare to alter what seemed fixed, and also to view the artist’s and the scientist’s search for truth as common companions.

My parents taught me that the unknown was an invitation to learn, not a menacing dimension to avoid. Ignorance was a starting place to enter deeper realms of understanding. At some point, though, they would tire of my endless questions; after entertaining my curiosity for some time, my mother would sometimes bring me back down to earth with a gentle, “Why has a long tail . . .” elongating her words as she spoke. In addition to my parents, I turned to another source of knowledge, television. As first-generation immigrants settling into Oxford, Mississippi, my parents wouldn’t let me watch commercials: They wanted to shield me from the materialism that appeared to be the backbone of American culture. “You will never find your worth in things,” they cautioned. However, they encouraged me to watch educational programs, so PBS became the television channel of choice in our home. I soon found myself anticipating shows like Nature, National Geographic, Nova, and Scientific American Frontier.

There was one episode in particular that left a lasting impact on me. When I was around nine years old, I watched a segment about robots. The program host visited a place called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spoke to a graduate student named Cynthia Breazeal about her work on what she called social robots. Unlike the industrial robots I had seen before—hulking machinery set to tasks like stamping out sheet metal—her social robot was not focused on work but on connection and communication. She sat next to a robot she had built named Kismet, a dazzling and intricate web of metal and wires topped off with enchanting eyes, animated ears, and a cheeky smile. The moment I saw the machine appear to come to life, I was mesmerized. Could I make something like Kismet? Could I go to a place like MIT, the ever-present backdrop to so many of the science and technology shows I watched? From that moment, I decided I wanted to go to MIT and become a robotics engineer. I was blissfully unaware of any barriers or requirements. I had more questions to ask of computers, nurtured in the incubator of youthful possibilities by the belief that I could become anything I imagined.

My first step toward building robots was learning how to program machines to do what I wanted. To give machines instruction, I discovered different kinds of programming languages. I started by learning the basics of HTML and CSS to build a website. These programming languages focused on structure and formatting. HTML allowed me to define the elements I wanted to see on a webpage, like a block of text, a button, or an image. CSS let me determine what these elements would look like, from the color of the text to how much space existed between elements. Each programming language had its own rules for how to give a computer directions. Soon enough I was using these skills to code websites for my high school sports teams and make some pocket money or barter. Even if I was a benchwarmer on the basketball team, at least I did not have to pay for my uniform or shoes.

I wanted to go deeper than websites, and I was curious about how to make games like the ones I played with my brother on his Nintendo 64 or Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, which I enjoyed on my Sony PlayStation. So I learned another programming language called Java. Here, I was introduced to the concept of an algorithm. An algorithm, at its most basic definition, is a sequence of instructions used to achieve a specific goal. To make my character move around the screen, I would write code that followed a logical sequence. For instance, if the user hits the left arrow, move the character left on the screen. Algorithms like this, as I would eventually learn, would become the basis for more powerful and dynamic systems.

I followed my desire to work on robotics into college. By my third year at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, I was working on social robots. One of the professors I worked with, Andrea Thomaz, was a former student of Cynthia Breazeal’s. And to my delight, when I started working on Thomaz’s robot Simon, I learned that the code that was used to power it had descended from the CREATURES code library that once animated Kismet. My assignment with Simon was to see if I could have the robot engage in a social interaction with a human. I settled on working on a project called peekaboo Simon. The aim was to have the robot participate in a simple turn-taking game with a human partner, similar to one that a parent might play with a young child. The larger aim behind this project was to see if we could have a robot play social games with young children and analyze how children responded and behaved during those interactions, thereby helping to diagnose early developmental delays or even early signs of autism. This kind of early detection could help a child receive necessary support as soon as possible.

To make this game work, I would need to get Simon the robot to detect a human face and direct its head toward the person. This was my introduction to face detection.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 31, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593241835
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593241837
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.1 x 8.59 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #52,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24 in Social Aspects of Technology
- #62 in Scientist Biographies
- #66 in Artificial Intelligence & Semantics
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242 ratings

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Joy Buolamwini

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Dr. Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a groundbreaking researcher, and a renowned speaker. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Time, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and The Atlantic. As the Poet of Code, she creates art to illuminate the impact of artificial intelligence on society and advises world leaders on preventing AI harms. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Rhodes Scholarship, the inaugural Morals & Machines Prize, and the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Her MIT research on facial recognition technologies is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias. Born in Canada to Ghanaian immigrants, Buolamwini lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Customers find the book informative and well-written, with one review highlighting how it helps understand bias in computer systems. Moreover, they appreciate the author's powerful perspective as a mirror for society, and one customer notes how it takes readers on a page-turning journey. Additionally, customers praise the writing style, with one review describing it as a lucidly written book on Artificial Intelligence.

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10 customers mention "Insight"9 positive1 negative

Customers find the book insightful and informative, with one customer highlighting its discussion of how bias works in computer systems and another noting its pioneering work on algorithmic justice.

"...review of this book due to its depth, I found it to be a powerful, insightful, and inspiring read." Read more

"I really enjoyed this informative, lucidly written book on Artificial Intelligence (AI) bias...." Read more

"...This book helped me understand and become aware of different aspects of a lack of DBEI in AI and how that affects the AI systems that we are using...." Read more

"...She takes you on a page-turning journey, discussing fascinating concepts such as the “coded gaze”, “power shadows”, and what it means to be “excoded...." Read more

9 customers mention "Readability"9 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable, with one mentioning it's a must-read for educators using AI.

"This was a perfect read for an educator looking to learn more about DBEI as it relates to AI...." Read more

"This is an excellent book! It points out some of the problems associated with overdependence on AI...." Read more

"Outstanding. A must read for EVERYONE." Read more

"I have enjoyed reading this one and suggest it to others. It is helpful for understanding how bias works in computer systems...." Read more

5 customers mention "Inspiration"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book inspirational, noting it serves as a powerful mirror for society, with one customer highlighting how it goes deep into systemic problems.

"...This book is a timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI, and should be mandatory reading for any initiative focused..." Read more

"...and growing in areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in education, especially as the world of AI grows daily...." Read more

"...It presents a unique perspective, exploring how artificial intelligence can inadvertently lead to unlawful discrimination based on factors such as..." Read more

"...Part tech warning, part memoir, all well-written, accessible, and intriguing. Read this book!" Read more

4 customers mention "Writing style"4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, with one customer noting its clear technical prose and another describing it as a lucidly written exploration of artificial intelligence.

"...Part tech warning, part memoir, all well-written, accessible, and intriguing. Read this book!" Read more

"I really enjoyed this informative, lucidly written book on Artificial Intelligence (AI) bias...." Read more

"Great book! Dr. Buolamwini is a masterful storyteller and combines clear technical prose with literal poetry...." Read more

"Well written and informative - this is an important work that all of us need to be aware of !" Read more

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Customers enjoy the adventure in the book, with one describing it as a page-turning journey.

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"...She takes you on a page-turning journey, discussing fascinating concepts such as the “coded gaze”, “power shadows”, and what it means to be “excoded...." Read more

"...Her sense of adventure and humor are woven throughout. I highly recommend this book - even if you’re not a “techie”!" Read more

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Customers praise the author's storytelling abilities.

"Joy Buolamwini is an incredible author. Everyone should read this book, especially educational leaders!" Read more

"Great book! Dr. Buolamwini is a masterful storyteller and combines clear technical prose with literal poetry...." Read more

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Sarah
A Must-Read for Educators Using AI
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2025
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This was a perfect read for an educator looking to learn more about DBEI as it relates to AI. I am a strong advocate for understanding, implementing, learning, and growing in areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in education, especially as the world of AI grows daily. This book helped me understand and become aware of different aspects of a lack of DBEI in AI and how that affects the AI systems that we are using. By becoming aware of the biases that were presented in this book, I feel I can be a stronger advocate for educators and looking through a critical lens in the AI systems we are using.

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GorgeousDreamer
Informative and Inspirational
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2025
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Unlike any other book I have read, this book delves into the profound impact of artificial intelligence on the realm of discrimination. It presents a unique perspective, exploring how artificial intelligence can inadvertently lead to unlawful discrimination based on factors such as race, gender, and disability. The book delves into the concept of algorithmic bias, which can have detrimental effects on marginalized groups. It highlights the existence of coalitions that advocate for the rights of these marginalized individuals, raising awareness about the potential harms associated with positive claims about artificial intelligence. Algorithmic Justice serves as a beacon of light, shedding light on the illegal use of personal information and the misuse of facial recognition technology to discriminate against individuals with darker skin tones. The book emphasizes the need to restrict the use of AI for facial recognition purposes, particularly in the context of mass surveillance and domestic flight, to protect the privacy and rights of all individuals. While I am unable to provide a comprehensive review of this book due to its depth, I found it to be a powerful, insightful, and inspiring read.

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Ras Taman Love
Timely, insightful & a good read
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
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This is an excellent book! It points out some of the problems associated with overdependence on AI. It also details how such programs are subject to the limitations of their input data. Many BPOC and women do not fit into the algorithms designed for White males and are not represented in the databases that inform many AI systems. Additionally, Dr. Buolamwini covers a unique range of literary space as the "Poet of Code", approaching her subject with an artist's flair as well as charting her own journey through earning a doctorate from MIT and building the Algorithmic Justice League. Part tech warning, part memoir, all well-written, accessible, and intriguing. Read this book!

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David Fulmer
Computer Science Scholar’s Memoir
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2024
This is a very timely memoir by the scholar Joy Buolamwini about her education and her critique of technology, particularly when it comes to race and gender. She describes her interest in computers, robots, and programming beginning at a young age which lead to her getting a PhD from MIT. During her studies and research she encountered a shortcoming in computer vision technology-it could recognize her colleagues' faces and her face when she put on a white mask, but not her own unmasked face. This experience and others inspired her to develop a wide-ranging critique of technology and artificial intelligence facial recognition and facial detection systems which led to her testimony in front of Congress, her participation in an enlightened Olay advertising campaign, a panel discussion on AI with the President, and many other interesting experiences described herein. This is a great memoir about someone from a marginalized identity seeking a career in technology and her positive and negative experiences.

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Donna medrek
🤖 Excellent AI Bias Discussion!
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2025
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Outstanding. A must read for EVERYONE.

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Dinara Ibotova
Received used book
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2025
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Received old book even though it said it’s new.

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RKJ
A timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2024
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Responsible development, deployment and use of AI is an increasingly trending topic today. If you’re looking for a thought-provoking deep dive into ethical considerations with AI technologies, I strongly recommend “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines” by Dr. Joy Buolamwini. She takes you on a page-turning journey, discussing fascinating concepts such as the “coded gaze”, “power shadows”, and what it means to be “excoded.” In the introduction, she asks readers to consider the harms of AI and how we could “center the lives of everyday people, and especially those at the margins, when we consider the design and development of AI? Can we make room for the best of what AI has to offer while also resisting its perils?”

Dr. Buolamwini does a remarkable job making the fight for algorithmic justice personal, making it relatable for the reader. Certain experiences shared in this book hit close to home for many, including myself. As one example, many years ago, I stepped in front of a camera with facial recognition tech on display at a store and it failed to recognize my face. However, my husband (who is white) was recognized immediately. People of color all around the world have similar stories.

This book is a timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI, and should be mandatory reading for any initiative focused on ethical AI. Through her pioneering work on algorithmic justice, Dr. Buolamwini not only shines a bright spotlight on opportunities associated with AI technologies, but she also provides practical, insightful guidance on how to mitigate their risks.

Read more

RKJ

A timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2024
Responsible development, deployment and use of AI is an increasingly trending topic today. If you’re looking for a thought-provoking deep dive into ethical considerations with AI technologies, I strongly recommend “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines” by Dr. Joy Buolamwini. She takes you on a page-turning journey, discussing fascinating concepts such as the “coded gaze”, “power shadows”, and what it means to be “excoded.” In the introduction, she asks readers to consider the harms of AI and how we could “center the lives of everyday people, and especially those at the margins, when we consider the design and development of AI? Can we make room for the best of what AI has to offer while also resisting its perils?”

Dr. Buolamwini does a remarkable job making the fight for algorithmic justice personal, making it relatable for the reader. Certain experiences shared in this book hit close to home for many, including myself. As one example, many years ago, I stepped in front of a camera with facial recognition tech on display at a store and it failed to recognize my face. However, my husband (who is white) was recognized immediately. People of color all around the world have similar stories.

This book is a timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI, and should be mandatory reading for any initiative focused on ethical AI. Through her pioneering work on algorithmic justice, Dr. Buolamwini not only shines a bright spotlight on opportunities associated with AI technologies, but she also provides practical, insightful guidance on how to mitigate their risks.

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
Great book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2024
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A fabulous and important book at a time when AI and facial recognition are everywhere.

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Jay Tarzwell
A fascinating look at how unconcious bias creeps into our machines
Reviewed in Canada on January 22, 2024
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You often hear the plaintive refrain from the fragile who troll social media comment sections that "not everything is about race." Never more so than at the slightest hint that white supremacy is under attack. And it’s true - not everything is about race. When it comes to the decision-making tools used by the government, law enforcement, businesses, insurance brokers, banks, and landlords to make decisions affecting our daily lives, though, we’d better be sure very sure it isn't about race. But we aren't sure, and that’s Unmasking AI’s message.

In Unmasking AI, Dr. Joy Buolamwini describes how a simple master’s project she built using AI to track facial movements in a mirror failed to detect her face unless she wore a white mask. She recounts how, through this, she discovered tech giants had failed to address bias and other ethical issues of AI in facial recognition software before taking their tools to market.

Part memoir, part exposé she explains what ultimately led her to create the Algorithmic Justice League and fight for the ethical use of facial recognition tools. She found that software sold to law enforcement and security companies was routinely misidentifying dark-skinned men and women. She also uncovered the underlying privacy issues surrounding AI face recognition and its training data. She illustrated this by explaining how companies like Facebook used millions of our photos without consent to train their AI.

A Canadian-born Ghanaian woman raised by an academic and an artist, first in Ghana and later in the United States, her perspective is unique. Despite her Fulbright and Rhoads Scholarships and MIT MSc & Ph.D., you sense the ‘otherness’ she feels in the worlds she inhabits. When she considered dropping out of her Ph.D. program, she rhetorically asked if her three academic credentials weren’t enough. She mentions famous tech dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg but recognizes that women aren’t granted the same latitude where credibility in tech is concerned.

Unmasking AI was interesting because there’s no undertone of a social justice warrior searching for a fight in Dr. Buolamwini. Hers is the story of an incredibly accomplished woman in STEM with unlimited options who found her calling through an accidental discovery. She's a woman who reveals she wasn’t even sure at first if she wanted to make it her mission to right the wrong she’d discovered. So yes, she is a socially minded warrior but not a frivolous or undisciplined one, who has been recognized by both Congress and President Biden for her work.

In today’s misguided social and cultural environment that divides us by race, gender, and a multitude of other thin wedges, we must recognize our own bias to see bias in AI. I was not fully alive to the alternate realities Dr. Buolamwini discusses until my daughter was born over a quarter century ago. I knew then that she would experience the world differently than I did as a man. While there is comfort in egocentricity, I let go of my ego’s safe shore to learn about the world she would face, and it was eye-opening.

Unmasking AI is equally eye-opening.

Dr. Buolamwini explores the coded bias built into AI systems and how they reflect human biases. What struck me profoundly was that AI systems don’t just mirror biases, but they reinforce and amplify them. Although not mentioned in her book, she now describes this effect not as a mirror but as a kaleidoscope because of how AI negatively refracts bias in subtly unexpected ways.

Does the state have any business monitoring its citizens without cause, she asks? It doesn’t, but omnipresent surveillance is coming. It is too tantalizing a technology not to come. Ironically, Dr. Buolamwini’s work to audit and improve facial recognition algorithms will ultimately extend their proficiency – a fact she acknowledges.

Finding systems were fine-tuned on large data sets of mostly white males. She found they were excellent at identifying white adult men but had difficulty detecting darker faces and gendering women; when given a binary choice, they failed 35% of the time.

So what? Consider how a facial recognition system that could only identify white men 65% of the time would be received. But systems that can only identify women of colour 65% of the time? They are available today and have the real-world impact you'd expect.

I trained teams bound for Afghanistan to make lethal strike/no-strike decisions through the lens of an armed drone's camera. AI could easily replace several steps I taught, including positive target identification, collateral damage assessment, and the lawful authority to strike assessment based on the rules of engagement.

I can only imagine how happy commanders would be to have AI’s assurance before ordering a strike. But is 65% enough? I don’t think so. The future use of remote weapons systems guided by flawed AI facial or visual recognition is a concern we all should have.

My own encounter with coded bias was revealing. While searching for images of ‘good-looking couples’ on a popular graphic arts website, it took 45 minutes to realize I’d been exclusively served white people. What startled me was what that said about my own unconscious racial bias.

It wasn’t until that moment that I began to see the tip of the iceberg that is algorithmic bias. People of colour have complained about it for several years. I’d heard their arguments but hadn’t understood them until that moment. Unmasking AI reveals this iceberg in a way the Titanic’s captain couldn't ignore.

Her book contributes significantly to the broader conversation about technology and society. It shatters the notion of AI as a monolithic, unbiased entity. She reminds us that AI is only as good as the data it's trained on.

We need continued vigilance to monitor the inherent weaknesses in AI systems. Things are changing, but with general resistance to the idea of unconscious bias in the chattering class, let alone the bias AI produces, we can’t assume this will solve itself.

This is where the third-party validation and government regulation Dr. Buolamwini advocates for is crucial. We need an objective understanding of an AI system’s strengths and limitations before deploying them. We need to insist that our technologies are not only equitable and beneficial but that they fundamentally protect the people they are designed to help.

Dr. Buolamwini is a charming writer and poet who didn’t bog the book down in technical jargon or concepts. Her ideas were well explained and easily accessible to those with a limited understanding of the issues. The timeline shifted more than I liked, but that was only a minor distraction. I read it on a beach in Punta Cana, so to say she held my interest is, I think, self-evident.

Ironically, my readings were immediately reinforced by a practical lesson - the facial recognition scan I was subject to on leaving the Dominican Republic. I wondered, where did my face go? Who will use it? How will they use it? Is it for sale? Will I ever know? as I presented my face to the camera. These are the questions Dr. Buolamwini teaches us to ask.

Unmasking AI is a call to action. It demands that we not, with blind faith, give our unreserved trust to AI and the companies developing it. It demands that we highly regulate facial recognition and the data supporting it.

As a researcher and engineer, Dr. Buolamwini does not suggest there is anything wrong with progress. She is not a doomer but a realist grounded in fact. As AI advances, she encourages us to let go of our safe shore to insist that the systems increasingly governing our lives do no harm.

Author's Note. I considered calling Dr. Buolamwini "Joy" throughout this review, but it didn't seem right. Her doctorate came at a great personal cost, and she deserves recognition for the sacrifices she made to achieve it. That, and I found myself repeatedly shouting, "No, don't do that!" as I read her thoughts on dropping out, and I was relieved when she didn't (despite knowing full well she didn't); I wanted to honour her in this small way to show the joy [sic] I felt when she was named a Doctor.

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Bill Thompson
a vitally important examination of AI
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2024
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A clear, cogent and inspiring story of the struggle to make society aware of the dangers of AI bias, written from an intensely personal, compelling and moving perspective. Vital reading for those who want to understand the real risks we are taking.

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Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines Hardcover – October 31, 2023

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Educators Using AI

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Inspirational

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, insightful & a good read

4.0 out of 5 stars Computer Science Scholar’s Memoir

5.0 out of 5 stars 🤖 Excellent AI Bias Discussion!

3.0 out of 5 stars Received used book

5.0 out of 5 stars A timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI

A timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at how unconcious bias creeps into our machines

5.0 out of 5 stars a vitally important examination of AI

A Must-Read for Educators Using AI

Informative and Inspirational

Timely, insightful & a good read

Computer Science Scholar’s Memoir

🤖 Excellent AI Bias Discussion!

Received used book

A timely, powerful mirror for society and its complex relationship with AI

Great book!

A fascinating look at how unconcious bias creeps into our machines

a vitally important examination of AI