Coded Bias

Will get the criticisms out of the way first, because by and large this was a really well-made documentary.

It's minor, but wasn't sure why some interviewees were framed with so much headroom. Then again, Mr Robot did that and I never understood it there, and given that that was also concerned with themes of technology and surveillance, maybe there's some shared symbolism I'm not picking up on.

Some of the segments with the AI saying menacing things were a little cheesy, but overall brief at least.

There's also a sense that the documentary may cover a little too much in its 85-minute runtime. While I can admire its ambition in covering so many aspects of facial recognition software, its racial biases, algorithm discrimination, and so on, it does make for a documentary that jumps around a fair bit and not always smoothly... at least all the topics are interesting on their own.

But in the end, it covers important topics and presents compelling arguments about particular flaws and biases in technology. It does warn that this is something that if unchecked could become a serious problem, so I like the attempt to bring awareness to this issue before it completely spirals out of control.

It's well edited, features interesting interviewees and subjects, and ends on a little more hope than I was anticipating, which was a nice surprise. Overall, it's one of the better Netflix documentaries I've watched in a while.

This was a good documentary making points we should all keep in mind.

And the main point is that increasing what would have been called beta code even 10 years ago is being pushed out as production ready. As she pointed out with IBM once she pointed out the issue to IBM with their face recognition AI they added examples to their training set and increased accuracy across the board. But that indicates it was not properly tested in the first place. That argues for a more inclusive IT staff and better QA. So that shows their first argument against some merit but could be fixed without much difficulty. So the solution ought to be to fix not ban.

The second argument of what if our government becomes like China is flawed as well. The face recognition AIs are going going to get better even if we do not work on them here someone will. Anything useful can also be used as a weapon. So if the government does want to use face recognition they will just get it. Probably better to have a known working system than one bought hasily and rushed into place.

It is odd to they barely mention any AI or ML outside of face recognition despite face recognition being a small part of what is out there.

All in all might be good to get you to started on research of your own but mostly misdirected furry.

Only flaw is that it didn't come out earlier than 2020. It's a must-watch if you have a brain in your skull, ignore all the babynazis flooding the reviews with their abominable screeching.

Does it matter to any of the reviewers here that the claims made in this documentary have been debunked?

Fact: The darker ones complexation is the LESS likely that there is usable video or photos for investigators or prosecutors.

The makers of this film claim the opposite is the case, they claim there is a bias against persons with darker complexions -- when in fact that is not at all what the peer reviewed research shows.