Coded Bias engages with real-world issues as AI becomes embedded in everyday life, from hiring decisions to policing and even surveillance. As facial recognition systems and automated decision-making tools proliferate, pressing questions arise about their real-world consequences, including wrongful arrests, denying opportunities to qualified candidates, and reinforcing inequalities. The documentary positions itself within these growing issues by exposing how supposedly neutral code can reproduce bias and discrimination when developed without accountability or diverse representation.
Directed by Shalini Kantayya, the film traces the story of MIT Media Lab PhD candidate Joy Buolamwini, who discovers during her research that facial recognition systems frequently fail to recognise her face. Strikingly, the software begins to detect her only when she wears a white mask, revealing deep-seated racial and gender biases embedded within these technologies. Buolamwini later emerges as a leading voice for accountability with the establishment of the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL), joining forces with other prominent figures in the field, including author Cathy O’Neil and data journalist Meredith Broussard. Her work resulted in a testimony before the US Congress, where she urged lawmakers to enact regulatory laws to investigate algorithmic biases and prevent AI technologies from perpetuating systemic discrimination.
The documentary has been critically acclaimed, premiering at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and earning nominations at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards and the Emmy Awards. A powerful call for transparency, fairness and justice in the age of algorithms, the film serves as a wake-up call to confront the unseen biases shaping our lives—and to take responsibility before technology shapes us instead.