Doctor Joy Buolamwini
Doctor Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, stands at the vanguard of AI ethics as a pioneering MIT researcher and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of the National Bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines and advises world leaders on preventing AI harms. Her landmark “Gender Shades” research galvanised the field of algorithmic auditing, ranking among the most influential AI bias studies ever published. This consequential research compelled three tech giants to halt sales of facial recognition technologies (FRTs) to law enforcement and sparked worldwide discourse on ethical AI implementation.
Known as the "Poet of Code," Doctor Buolamwini's artistic practice spans four continents, illuminating AI's societal impact through art exhibitions and poetic performance. Her doctoral dissertation conceptualized the "evocative audit" theory behind works like “AI, Ain’t I A Woman?”—a powerful spoken word poem and visual AI audit exposing how household tech platforms misclassify prominent women including Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama. As a public intellectual, her TED talk on algorithmic bias has been viewed over 1.8 million times. The Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias, chronicling her evolution from graduate researcher to algorithmic justice advocate, was available to over 100 million Netflix viewers worldwide.
A Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Fellow, Doctor Buolamwini received the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Fortune Magazine names her the "conscience of the AI revolution," while Time magazine placed her on their inaugural list of the 100 most influential figures in artificial intelligence. After earning her doctorate from MIT, she received honorary degrees from both Knox College and Dartmouth. In 2024, her contributions were recognised with the NAACP-Civil Digital Rights Award, presented by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex.
29 July 2025 - Dr Joy Buolamwini and the Algorithmic Justice League Urge TSA to Halt Deployment of Facial Recognition Technology Following 2-Year Study Finding Concerning Treatment of Travelers:
The Algorithmic Justice League (AJL), a leader in advocating for ethical and accountable AI, has released a new report based on the accounts of hundreds of travelers over the course of a two-year study following the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The concluding results found that 99% of travelers did not receive verbal notice of their right to opt out while half of travelers did not report seeing signage. Many of those who elected to opt out experienced negative treatment by TSA officers as a result.
“The findings show that the majority of travelers experience TSA’s facial recognition experiment as voluntary, and it has been rolled out without giving people a true choice,” says AJL founder Dr. Joy Buolamwini, Fellow of the Accelerator Fellowship Programme of the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford, and a global leader in AI ethics. “We recommend TSA halts the experiment to give time for public deliberation. Giving up valuable face data should not be the price to fly. And if facial surveillance technologies become normalized at airports, it invites wider use in other domains of life, including stores, schools, and even hospitals.
- Read the media release for further information "Dr Joy Buolamwini and the Algorithmic Justice League Urge TSA to Halt Deployment of Facial Recognition Technology Following 2-Year Study Finding Concerning Treatment of Travelers"
- Read the full report "Comply to Fly report"
- Download the one-page infographic "Comply to Fly report infographic"
- Visit the "Comply to fly" report page
