Algorithms and Society 

In my final semester of college, I was able to take a class with Sarita Schoenebeck called Algorithms and Society, where we covered the potential harms and impacts of technology on communities, focusing on how bias and discrimination can seep into algorithms - something people often (incorrectly) assume to be impartial. As COVID hit and classes were shut down, Dr. Shoenebeck assembled a group of graduating students who had taken the class with the goal of creating educational materials for anyone to easily learn about algorithmic bias.

My role was to research topics surrounding algorithmic bias and boil those big technical ideas down into something easily consumable - each of which was then voiced over and turned into a short, animated video. For each potential topic, I gathered relevant research articles, created learning goals and discussion questions, and wrote scripts for the videos. I did this for eight different topics: an intro to algorithmic bias, a vocabulary lesson, voting and politics, marketing and advertising, privacy, recognition technologies, Twitter and white supremacy, and TikTok and racial bias.

Four of those made it through the full process before the project came to an end, and the videos can be found here!

Awareness of this sort of bias within technical solutions and the recognition that technology is not always a good answer to a problem is crucial, and I was thrilled to be able to work on this project.