Trust in Tech, Episode 14: Addressing Systemic Bias in Tech w/ Meredith Broussard

Welcome to the Trust in Tech podcast, a project by the Integrity Institute — a community driven think tank which advances the theory and practice of protecting the social internet, powered by our community of integrity professionals.

Bias exists all around us, and unfortunately it is present in the technologies we use today.

Today we are joined by Professor Meredith Broussard, a data journalism professor at NYU, and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of a new book More Than A Glitch: Confronting Race, gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.

We discuss the root cause of systemic biases in tech and why the current paradigm of establishing and optimizing metrics leads to misaligned incentives in both technology companies and journalism.

Along the way Meredith explains techno-chauvanism, its prevalence and why computer science students are taught to think this way. We also discuss how Mid-Journey maps from text to image, the purpose of science fiction, and how algorithmic audits can help mitigate bias for technology companies.

As a reminder, the views stated in this episode are not affiliated with any organization and only represent the views of the individuals. We hope you enjoy the show.

Subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Credits:

Produced by Talha Baig

Music by Zhao Shen

Special Thanks to Rachel, Sean, Cass and Sahar for their continued support