CODED BIAS explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately. As it turns out, artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected. The film charts Joy's journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Shalini Kantayya, in an interview with Forbes, spoke further about her powerful, ground-breaking film, noting that "everything we love, everything we care about as citizens of a democracy is going to be totally transformed by artificial intelligence — in fact, is in the process of being transformed. AI systems are often the most invisible, automated, first-line gatekeepers to every opportunity we have, and they are rarely vetted for bias or even accuracy."

While shooting the aptly titled CODED BIAS, Shalini detailed a particular experience that stuck with her: "I had the experience of standing next to Joy and the computer could see my face, and the computer could not see her face. Even in the film, I don't think it could capture how I felt in that moment, because it really felt like, 'When the constitution was signed, Black people were three-fifths of a human being. And here we're sitting at a computer who's looking and doesn't see Joy as a human being, doesn't recognize her face as a face.' To me, that was a stark connection of how racial bias can be replicated. I think when you experience it viscerally—and that's not even a misidentification that comes with police, law enforcement, frisking you, or some infringement on your civil rights—just that visceral experience of not being seen has implications that we need to talk about more."