BONUS - Breaking the Black Box

Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson sparked a national controversy this week when he posted a series of livid tweets about how his wife received a much lower credit limit than he did on their Apple Cards, despite applying with the same financial information. What began as a rant against opaque algorithms turned into a regulatory investigation and more. In this episode, Dr. Ruha Benjamin of Princeton University and entrepreneur Mara Zepeda, co-founder of the XXcelerate Fund and Zebras Unite, talk about how the tech and financial sectors perpetuate systemic inequalities and how to start repairing the damage—or building something more equitable and inclusive from the ground up.

Show Notes

Apple Card - 1:31

DHH's Twitter thread - 1:53

Steve Wozniak's response - 1:58

The New York Department of Financial Services' announcement of its investigation into Goldman Sachs - 2:11

"About the Apple Card" (Jamie Heinemeier Hansson) - 2:28

Ruha Benjamin's website | Twitter - 2:57

Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin - 2:59

University of Michigan article about the failures of the state's MiDAS system - 7:31

"Racial bias in a medical algorithm favors white patients over sicker black patients" (Washington Post) - 8:18

"Biased bots: Artificial-intelligence systems echo human prejudices" (Princeton University) - 12:40

"Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women" (Reuters) - 14:15

Ruha Benjamin's Resources - 15:29

Joy Buolamwini on Twitter - 16:52

"Atlanta Asks Google Whether It Targeted Black Homeless People" (NYT) - 17:40

Tuskegee Study, 1932-1972 (CDC) - 18:35

Atlantic article about J. Marion Sims and his experiments on enslaved women - 18:51

NYT article about China's use of facial recognition technology to oppress the Uighur minority - 20:10

"Somerville Bans Government Use Of Facial Recognition Tech" (WBUR) - 20:38

"Can you make AI fairer than a judge? Play our courtroom algorithm game" (MIT Technology Review) - 22:31