Race After Technology

I've heard many talks by Ruha Benjamin and others on some of the critical themes covered in this book: how facially "neutral" designs can ossify and expand inequity, how attempts to reduce bias can in fact increase it, etc. I've even heard many of the examples in this book before: the shockingly racist systems embedded in film development technology, the replication of eugenics throughout the decades, and so on. But this book covers each topic with a rigor and depth that is so illuminating, so insightful, that it demands to be read if you're even peripherally connected or use technology (basically everyone).

Benjamin delivers a clarion call for thinking through the systems in which we embed technology, the need to question what is measured and optimized, and the importance of building or dismantling systems to bring about a more just world. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Benjamin's work is a powerful overview of the ways in which technology--which can give the appearance of "neutrality"--actually serves to reinforce existing inequalities. The examples given in this book are profoundly disturbing (an AI-driven beauty contest picks nearly all white winners), and point to the ways in which technology obscures underlying power structures. Technological solutions to problems involve choices, and Benjamin argues that we need a better understanding of how those choices are made and whose interests they are serving.

Easy overview of inequality-preserving tech trends, dismantling the notion of automation as neutral or objective or beneficent, by nature or design. But at this point nothing in here felt very revelatory or thorough, covers a lot in a short book.

Excellent framing of the problem of technology in our racist society. I'm feeling very inspired to think critically with my new found tools, and combine it with my creative skills!