Unmasking AI

“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

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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