Inclusion, Inc.

CHAPTER 14AI Won't Save Us (Unless We Save It First)

“Fairness is a statistical concept.”

—Heather Krause, Founder of We All Count

“Algorithms are human agency and interests, encoded.”

—University of Sussex Researcher Tony Roberts

In 2015, T.J. Fitzpatrick was attending a science fiction convention at an Atlanta Marriott. In the convention center restroom, when he went to wash his hands, nothing came out of the soap dispenser. He assumed it was empty. T.J. went to the next one, and the next, until he had held his hands under all 10 soap dispensers. Then his friend Larry came in, and T.J. decided to wait for him. When Larry went to wash his hands, the soap worked on the first try.

T.J. tried again—still no success. For Larry, it worked every time.

T.J. was Black, and Larry was white.

They laughed about it, recorded a quick split-screen take of their experiences, and shared the videos out to social media. It may have been the first time a soap dispenser went viral. Suddenly it was clear that this was a trend outside of the Atlanta Marriot. “Oh my God, I thought it was just me,” commented a Black woman. Thousands of similar comments rolled in from people of color who had experienced the mysterious case of the “racist soap dispenser” in other places.

Touchless dispensers use near-infrared technology that emits light from an LED bulb, which a person's hands then reflect to a triggering sensor. Because darker skin absorbs more light than lighter skin, in many of these dispensers, ...