Jul 2019

Safiya Umoja Noble is an Associate Professor at UCLA. Her academic research focuses on the design of online digital media platforms and their impact on society. This book is about the power of algorithms and the ways in which the decisions they make reinforce oppressive social relationships and facilitate racial profiling.

So much of the world we all interact with and rely on for our everyday lives, whether it is browsing for holiday inspiration, buying books, chatting on social media, sits invisibly behind the phones and computers we feel so familiar and so comfortable with. It is controlled by companies with little accountability who in turn build in automated decision making on a vast scale. Noble exposes and explores these algorithmic biases and asks us to question the values of those responsible for prioritising these digital decisions. If you were to sit across the table from a human being that was open about the fact they were discriminating against you because of your gender or the colour of your skin, you would – rightly – be outraged. Why then, when faced with technology that does exactly that, are we not provoked to react in the same way?

This book is written to encourage us all to improve our understanding and awareness of these algorithmic decisions. The author is one of an increasing number of voices forcing new levels of transparency and accountability, especially on large technology companies who have such a tight grip on the information sector.

Noble largely focuses on how the classification and organisation of information affects black and minority ethnic groups and individuals, an issue which should concern each and every one of us. Data is becoming increasingly granular - so we can all be discriminated in ways we are only just beginning to comprehend.