This Week in Tech, Race, and Gender - DINT 131
Are supermarkets transparent enough about false positives with their facial recognition systems?
News Bites
Supermarkets appear to be vanguards of facial recognition adoption in the retail space. Yet again a top supermarket, this time in the UK, is rolling out facial recognition to stem the tide of theft in their stores. So far there’s no data on the amount of false positives the system makes or if the chain will conduct a complete vetting process before prosecuting a person accused of shoplifting. We know all too well that facial recognition systems throw false positives that ruin the accused lives.
Related Coverage
More startup funding for Black, female entrepreneurs. Private, small funding for startups continues to grow. Entrepreneur and fitness expert Hannah Bronfman, started a fund aimed at diversifying the startup space.
Recreation or progress? Computer Weekly just awarded Sheridon Ash the title of Most influential Woman in Tech. She is joined on the list wit several women of color.
Intentional diversity? Yes, please. A clip from a 2019 conference resurfaced this week. It featured Bozoma Saint John admitting she hired from a different talent pool and pipeline than the one created by her employer at the time.
Energy for a diverse future. Florida Power and Light introduced several students in Florida to the world of energy engineering. In partnership with the American Association of Blacks in Energy, FPL held a generator development competition at Lake High School. This event encouraged underrepresented youth to consider STEM as a career choice.
Palate Cleanser
Robot kidnaps other robots during a tradeshow conference in China. Owners of the robots allowed the smaller device, also known as a bot, to attempt to steal away its robots. The bot became creative and asked the robots a series of questions along the lines of, “Do you like your job?” and “Do you get time off?”
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