ONLINE ASSEMBLY 3: Rejecting discriminatory algorithms: Is Unbiased AI Possible? 

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Who gets to design algorithmic sysrels, and what would it mean to design them differently?

AI is already making decisions about our lives: who gets to speak online, what we see, the news stories we know, who gets an interview, who receives welfare, who is considered “high risk”,  and who gets access to public space. From AI-powered job interviews to algorithmic welfare systems and racist chatbots, supposedly neutral technologies can reproduce – and intensify – existing inequalities.

But how do algorithms actually work? Where does algorithmic bias come from? And can we build technologies that don’t reproduce the systems of power that already exist?

Building on case studies explored through our in-person assemblies, we will investigate how algorithmic decision-making is already affecting our rights and everyday lives, and explore how an intersectional feminist ai may be possible.

SPEAKERS

Pia Sombetzki, Senior Policy Manager at AlgorithmWatch, works on issues like algorithmic discrimination, AI and platform regulation. She testified in the German Bundestag and several federal parliaments on AI and automation. Pia holds degrees in European Studies from Maastricht University and in Sociocultural Studies from the European University in Frankfurt (Oder).
 
AlgorithmWatch is a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Berlin and Zurich. We fight for a world where algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) do not weaken justice, human rights, democracy, and sustainability but strengthen them.

Amina Soulimani is the A+ Alliance Program Director and AI & Equality Team Lead. She brings to this work a background in medical anthropology, science and technology studies, and feminist work, currently as a PhD Candidate at the University of Cape Town and Doctoral Research Fellow at HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa, which grounds her approach to technology governance in close attention to lived experience, practices of care, and power.

The A+ Alliance for inclusive algorithms is a global, multidisciplinary coalition working to make algorithmic systems instruments of equality rather than engines of exclusion. It is co-led by Women at the Table and Code for Africa, and brings together academics, activists, technologists, and women’s rights organizations to prototype what accountable artificial intelligence actually looks like in practice.