01/30/20 01/30/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from the sundance film festivival in park city, utah, this is democracy now! does somethingnt which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. amy: in extraordinary claim of executive power, president trump's lawyer alan dershowitz

says a sitting president can take any action to boost his reelection chances if he feels his reelection is in the public interest. we will get the latest on the historic impeachment trial with former acting solicitor general neal katyal. author of "impeachch: the case against donald trurump." then "coded bias." a new film that exposes ee racicial and gder prejudice baked into artificial intelligence. >> and one test iran, amazon ran, amazon-- i recognition on oprah winfrey. i had to resort to literally wearing a white mask to have my place detected by some of this technology. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynynow.org, the war anad peace report. i'm amy goodman.

president trump's legal team offered an extraordinary new defense during the president senate impeachchment trial wednesday. attorney alan dershowitz said a sitting president could take any action to boost his reelelection chances if he feels his reelection is in the public interest. somethingdent does which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. amy: meanwhile, democrats are trying to secure enough votes to get trump's former national security advisor john bolton to testify. bolton has written in a forthcoming book that trump personally told him he wanted to maintain a freeze on military aid to ukraine until ukraine turned over materials related to trump's political rival former vice president joe biden. the white house is attempting to halt publication of bolton's book, claiming it contains

classified information. this is for democratic senator tim kaine. >> before there is a vote on conviction war acquittal, there is going to be a vote on whether this is a trial or a sham. that is what the vote is going to be like the on friday. is this a trial or is it a sham. amy: hundreds of protesters descended on capitol hill and stay to demand of senate call witnesses as part of trump's impeachment trial. this is reverend william barber. >> what we're seeing in the united states senate is as bad as what we saw with jim crow. it is macconnell and other predators -- amy: we will have more on the impeachment trial with former solicitor general neal katyal after headlines. the european parliament voted overwhelmingly to ratify the brexit withdrawal agreement, meaning britain will formally withdraw from the european union

friday at midnight brussels time. this is michel barnier, the head of the european commission's u.k. task force. >> is obviously a very sad and for bothay because sides, separating will make us weaker. as in a divorce. amy: the w world health organizationon's memeeting again today to decide whether to declare the coronavirus an international blic healtlth emergency as the death toll continues to mount over 170 peoplple have died in china, and o over 70 casases hae en confirmrmed worldwide. 16 airlines have now canceled alall or m many ofheheir flightn and d out of chinana. in election news, senator amy: bashar is facing calls to suspend -- closure is facing calls to suspend her campaign. an african-american teenager sentenced to life in prison over 2002 murder of an 11-year-old. my led the case against morale when she was the district attorney. a new associated press report

says she may have mishandled the case and that burrell could be innocent. they relied on jailhouse informants, some of whom have since recounted their testimony. he has always maintained his innocence. -- minneapolis and up minneapolis and of latency and others are calling to suspend her campaign. in france, thousands of protesters poured into the streets of paris, marseille, nantes, rennes, toulouse and bordeaux wednesday in the latest mass demonstration against french president emmanuel macron's proposed pension overhaul. in paris, thousands of protesting firefighters clashed with riot police. french workers and unions have staged mass demonstrations for months to protest the pension overhaul. this is one of the protesters. >> it is scandalous. they're pulling us -- putting us

we.old up position amy: a cuban man died d in the custody of immigration and customs enforcement in miami on monday, marking the sixth immimigrant to die i in ice cusy since october. he was the second immigrant to die in ice custody in the past week alone after a british man died inside the baker county detention center in florida on saturday. retired salvadoran general has acknowledged for the first time that united states trained forces were responsible for carrying out the 1981 massacre in which nearly 1000 unarmed villagers were killed. most of those tortured and murdered by the u.s.-backed's were women and children. this comes as the u.s. state department has banned 13 formerr

salvadadoran military officiaias from entering the united states after they allegedly orchestrated the extrajudicial priests,f six jesuit the housekeeper, and her daughter in 1989. like the massacre, the killing of the priest was also carried out by the soldiers trained by the united stetes. in s south dakota, the controlled house of representatives has passed a bill that criminalizes gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth. lawmakers voted 46 to 23 in favor of house bill 1057, which would make it a felony for doctors to provide anyone under the age ofof 16 with pubererty blockers, , hormoneses, and othr transition-related healthcare. parents and health professionals say the bill will take away lifesaving treatments for transgender youth. doctors involved with this could

face 10 years in prison. go to democracynow.org to see our full coverage of house bill 1057 with the aclu's chase strangio and the oscar-nominated director yancey ford, the first openly transgender director nominated for an academy award. and the publisher of flatiron books has canceled the author tour of the controversial novel "american dirt" after the book faced massive criticism and backlash for its stereotypical and inaccurate portrayal of mexicans and the current migration crisis. the book by jeanine cummins tells the story of a mexican mother and her son fleeing cartel violence. before its release, it was heralded as the next great american novel and flatiron books paid cummins, who is not mexican, a seven-figure advance. but a slew of latino writers say the book is a poorly researched caricature of mexico and have slammed the publishing industry

for ignoring latino writers who are telling their own stories of migration and displacement. this is author and writer myriam gurba speaking with maria hinojosa on npr about reading "american dirt" while in mexico. i am felt insulting that tremendousy with a cultural history and a tremendous literary history, and i am reading a book with an introductory letter from a thissher that argues that author is going to give a face to the faceless. i'm looking around my mexican family and we all have faces. faces and voices matter in my family. amy: the book's critics also say "american dirt" completely erases central americans, who actually make up the largest number of asylum seekers fleeing to the u.s.-mexico border.

myriam gurba and other latino writers launched a campaign called dignidad literaria -- or "literary dignity" -- in order to promote latino writers. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. nermeen: and i'm nermeen shaikh. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. president trump's legal team offered an extraordinary new defense during the president's impeachment trial on wednesday. attorney alan dershowitz said that a sitting president could take any action to boost his reelectionon chances if he felt his reelection was in the public interest. >> if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. nermeen: dershowitz's claim came

during a portion of the trial where senators were given a chance to submit written questions to trump's legal team and the house impeachment managers. the question and answer period continues today. the impeachment trial could end as soon as friday if the senate republican leadership succeed in blocking democrats from calling any witnesses. amy: democrats are hoping to secure enough votes to get trump's former national security advisor john bolton to testify. bolton has written in a forthcoming book that trump personally told him he wanted to maintain a freeze on military aid to ukraine until ukraine turned over materials related to his political rival, former vice president joe biden. nermeen: the white house is attempting to halt publication a bolton's book, claiming it contains classified information. on wednesday, democratic senate minority leader charles schumer submitted a question about whether there can be a fair senate trial without key eyewitnesses such as john bolton. this is house impeachment manager adam schiff. >> the short answer is, no.

there is no way to have a fair trial without witnesses. when you have a witness who is as plainly relevant as john bolton, who goes to the heart of the most serious and egregious of the president's misconduct, who has volunteered to come and testify to turn him away and look the other way, i think is deeply at odds with being an impartial juror. amy: white house deputy counsel patrick philbin disagreed. the point of whether this chamber should hear from ambassador bolton -- i think it is important to consider what that means. it is not just a question of, well, she would just your one witness? that is not what the real question is going to be. for this institution, the real question is, what is the precedent that is going to be

set for what is an acceceptable way for r the house of representatives to bring in impeachment of a president of the united states to this chamber? hurried,t be done and half-baked, partisan fashion? in a moment, we will go to washington, d.c., where we will be joined by neal katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general in the obama administration. he is a professor at georgetown and author of "impeach: the case against donald trump." ♪ [music break]

amy: "take it high now." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are joint and washington, d.c., by neal katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general in the obama administration,

supreme court lawyer, and georgetown university law professor. neal katyal is also the author of "impeach: the case against donald trump." welcome to democracy now! we want to go right to, well, that explosive claim or president trump's lawyer alan dershowitz. his claim of executive power that says a sitting president can take any action to boost his reelection chances if he feels his reelection is in the public interest. if you could start off by weighing in on that and then talk about the significance of what happened yesterday where we moved to that period of 16 hours of the senators asking questions to chief justice of the united states john roberts, who is presiding over the senate pitchman trial donald trump? >> ok. .t is grgreat to be on your show with respect to what you're

saying aboutut profeor dershohowitz, you u call it a cm by professor dershowitz. i think the technical legal word is a joke. word is a joke. that is no responsible constitutional scholar in two centuries agrees with dershowitz. as cannot chop them all up biased politically or something like that. you can go back decades and you'll never find a serious scholar sayiying anything like what he said yesterday. that is for a very simple reasonon. impeachment is the people's check against an abusive president. it was l laced into our constitution by our founders. and the idea that a president can simply say "oh, i think my reelection is in the national interest, therefore i can do whatever i want," is stupid. it is a ridiculous argument. it would mean, for example, president nixon when ordering the watergate break-in of the dnc headquarters did not commit an impeachable offense. it would mean a president could use the army to go threaten

democrats who voted for democratic candidates instead of voting for him. it could even mean the president could shoot his opponent and say, "hey, my reelection is in the national interest i can do whatever i want." this is not even bad constitutional learning, it is atrocious constitutional lawyering. one more point about this. this lawyer dershowitz is hired by the president, so he is going out there and advocating with the president wants him to advocate. in any president who has these views has to be removed. that is the definition of why you have impeachment in their. he doesn't believe in the rule of law. he thinks he is above it. as long as his motivations for reelection are pure and he is in the national interest. in our founders -- if you go back to the federalist papers, men aren't angels. that is why government is necessary.

that is why the double security of checks and balances is necessary. all of that is being destroyed in this moment by the president's arguments. nermeen: neal katyal, could you also talked about how trump's legal team more generally has been dealing specifically with bolted's book revelations -- bolton's book revelations? first, they ignore them. then they said they are inadmissible. the dershowitz thing it doesn't matter if they are true or not because it would not "rise to the level of abuse of power or an impeachable offense." up so allfirst back of your listeners and watchers know w what is goioing on. article one of the presidential impeachment articles says the president of used power.r. it essentially says he tried to cheat and the 2020 election b by trtrying to coererce a foreign government to anannounce an investigation into his c chief polilitical rival joe biden.

"oh, no,dent has said, i was just figighting corruption and that is why i withheld the aid." which has always been a ludicrous argument on its facts because he cannot name a single other place in the world where he actually cared about corruption and in response, for example, yesterday, to senator collins' question, his lawyers could not amount with any explanation of how trump only magically cared about corruption after biden into the presidential race e and not before. so it has always been weak. but what bolton did is destroy it. bolton, according to "the new york times" revelations about his book, said that is not w why trumump did itit. he was doing it for hihis political campaign. so that is why the bolted testimony is so important. that is why trump is so scared. scared that bolton will testify or that anyone in the executive ritual testify, which is why he has tried to get every executive

branch employee. what trump's lawyers are doing is they are basically trying a game of misdirection. they're like, look over here. look at what the house did wrong. look at what the democrats did wrong stop this and that. at the end, the central thing is this -- this is what i hope thte hohouse managers today focus on- that trump has produced no evidence at all, zero evidence, to exonerate him. the house managers by contrast have produced over a dozen witnesses that all point the finger directly at trump. the transcript itself points the finger at trump. he has no evidence to the contrary because he's afraid to put any evidence in the record. any witness, any document. in a world in which you have evidence on one side and nothing on the other except a lawyers argument, conjecture, like his lawyers yesterday, i don't think this is very close. disservice a grave

to try and acquit the president on the basis of his record. it would be obviously in contravention of their oath to do impartial justice. amy: on wednesday, chief justice john roberts read a question submitted by democratic senator joe mansion of west virginia. this i is roberts followowed by chief trump attorney alan dershowitz. >> the house has repeatedly impeached and the senate has convicted officers for high crimes and misdemeanors that were not indictable crimes. 1998mr. dershowitz said in that in impeachable offense "certainly doesn't have to be a crime." what has happened in the past 22 years to change the original intent of the framers and historic meaning of the term "high crimes and misdemeanors"? >> what happened since 1998 as i studied more, did more research, read more documents. like any academic, altered my

views. that is what happens. that is what professors ought to do. amy: that was alan dershowitz responding to senator manchin's question read through supreme court justice roberts. talkkatyal, if you could about the substance of the question and answer and then let's talk a little bit about chief justice roberts and how much he can bring his justice experience -- how much he can weigh in. it is so unusual right now, the chief justice presiding over the senate impeachment trial of president trump. >> thank you. i'm not going to impugn professor dershowitz's motives, but i would like to your about whatatources he e actually studd because as i was saying a moment ago, no responsible constitutional scholar -- not just now, but for the last two centuries -- saysys anything lie what he said yesterday.

the only scholar that i suppose he could find is a guy named richard nixon, who said it back in 1 1977 to david frost. bubut really, no serious schola. and for good reason. there is lolots of s stuff thats impeachable, but that is not a crime. -- suppose thee president is really upset with justin trudeau producing him at a global conference. so the president decides to nuke canada. that is not a crime. there is no criminal law that prevents it, but it is obsolete impeachable. for an example that might be closer to o reality, suppose pun decides to invade boston and new york tomomorrow and the p presit does not put up a defense. that is not a crime, but it is obviously impeachable behavior. crimes have never been the standard which i think senator manchin sat in his question,

they've never been the standard both b before 1998 nor afafter. the second part of your question had to do with the role of the chief justice. i argued 41 cases before our chief justice. he is far more conservative than i am, but he is always fair. i disagree with some of the rulings, but they are best -- based onon a sense o of law and justice and i think americacans should be glad he is presiding over this trial. representative, shifted something which i have been expecting for a while, which is to say, look, we think this whole witness question should be decided by the chief justicice. as i wrote about it in "the new york times," i think there is an easy case the chief justice can decide whether or not witnesses can be subpoenaed. there's a harder question about whether it requires 51 senators to overrule him or two thirds of the senate to overrule him. i acknowledge there's a bunch of debate about that,t, but i don't

think there is any serious thete in the first instance chief justice can authorize subpoena of the witnesses. john roberts is a real judge who has presided over so many cases. he knows you can't have a trial without witnesses. there is no such thing. representative adam schiff to the right thing yesterday and saying he's going to try to leave this in the chief justice's hands. i hope the republicans do the same thing. i think all americans should have faith in this chief justice. nermeen: on wednesday, the question came from republican first senators susan collins of maine, lisa murkowski of alaska and mitt romney of utah. they are the republicans considered most open to voting in favor of allowing witnesses. they asked trump's legal defense team to explain if trump was culpable if he had mixed motives. this is trump attorney patrick philbin responding. some there is both

personal motive but also legitimate public interest motive, it can't possibly be because it would be absurd to have the senate trying to 48%ider, well, was it legitimate interest and 52% personal interest? where was it 53% and -- you can't divide it that way. , could youul katyal respond to thahat? >> yeah, i think the most central thing is the president, if he thinks it is 52% or 40% or even 90% or whatever in the public interest, he has got to come out and testify and say so. right now there is witness after witness who has testified under oath i in the congress that the presesident did this because he was trying to get political points. and to get an investigation announced -- not even the substance of a real

investigatation, but just one announced against joe biden by the ukrainian government. so if the president really believes he has mixed motives, he has got to have the guts to go and tell that to the american people -- in particular, the senate of the ununited states. until then, it is just a bunch of lawyer talk and it is holy and persuasive. amy: can you talk about the republicans saying reciprocal witnesses. if the democrats get bolton, the republicans get joe biden, hunter biden -- they get someone for each one that the democrats get. talk about the significance of this. what is a material witness and ultimately decides? >> well, it is very frustrating because i think the democrats and the house managers have really approached this from the standpoint of trying to get a search for the truthth. treating the senate as effectively a court of law and trying to get wititnesses who ae

relevant and material, meaning they have i information that is pertinent to the allegations againsnst them. in t the senenators -- the republican senators by contrast keep threatening, oh, we're going to call joe biden. it will be bad for your political stuff. i think they're talking to different lananguages. the house is reaeally talking ge language of the rule of law. the senate republicans are really talking the language of politics. which i think is enormously destructive force. look, if they want to make a case that hunter biden or joe biden is truly relevant to this, great. but as you were saying a moment ago, i thought the president offense was that he had mixed motives in his own head. and there is really only one true witness who can explain that defense and that is donald trump. and until he goes and says so on the stand, all of this has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. there's really nothing to it.

in particular, we have witness after witness thing, no, tell me your motivation was something else. -- no, you told me your motivation was something else. that is what investor bolton told "new york times" in his book. to come to any sort of resolution on this without hearing from him is like it is a mockery of american justice. it is much more like the soviet system. i don't think it is going to work. i think at the senate voted tomorrow to not have any witnesses and to rush to acquittal of trump, i think all that is going to do is force a rolling impeachment of the president. the house is then going to come -- go back and call all of these witnesses and they will all come forward and the bolton book will come out and these republicans who voted for no witnesses will have the blood of the constitution on their hands. one of the arguments, as you know, that trump lawyers

have been making is that by calling witnesses that will automatically lead to endlessly -- endless litigation. you recently wrote a piece saying trump's lawyers are in fact wrong in making that argument. this is an easy one. i wrote in "the washington post" yesterday the reason. in the house, it is true that if they try to call bolton or other folks, the president has said he is going to try to fight this in the courts through executive privilege. but in the senate, it is a whole different thing because the chief justice presides over the senate impeachment trial. he is right there and can decide any executor privilege question. indeed, the u.s. supreme c court indicates a case about 20 years ago said the federal courts have no business in impeachment trials reviewing what is going on. so you can''t make a f federal court case out of impeachment.

so the chiefef justice is goingo be the last word. thatat is exactly what representative adam schiff said late last night on the floor of the senate. we're talking about days not months or years, but days to have executive privilege claim invoked and resolved. it is clear to me that president would -- when you invoke executive privilege, after s shw the documents or the testimony that you want to be privileged. and here i think the president is quite afraid to show those documents because they show he is guilty. there's any number of other problems of the executive privilege claim, the fact he waited by talking about all of the stuff ahead of time and the like. i think it is a bogus claim and he will easily be resolved and no senators should be worried this is going to delay things in any serious fashion. we are askingal,

you a lot about what happened yesterday, the beginning of the senators asking actions the chief justice who is presiding over the trial john roberts. but overall, the senate impeachment trial that has been taking place -- he wrote a book on impeachment that just came out. what has surprised you most? what information did you not realize? has anything changed your mind? and do you think it is possible that hunter biden, for example, were forced to take the stand that new information w would coe out? >> i wrote the book, which is called "impeach" as a citizen's guide to impeachment. it is 150 pages long and goes through the history of impeachment starting with the philadelphia convention and brings us up to the present day and the allegations against president trump. to answer your question, i don't think anything that has come out has changed anything that i wrote in the book since it came

out about a month and half ago. if anything, it is just ththe ce against trump has become stronger because each week there is new revelations, whether it is the bolton book this week or the lev parnas testimony last week or the office of management sayingse me, the gao what the president did with ukraine is illegal the week before. you just have more and more evidence. the trajectory of this all points in the president's guilt. there is no new evidence that has come out ever since the whistleblower report in september that says the president is innocent. it all points in that same direction. and you asked me what i was surprised about since i wrote the book. i would say one thing. the beginning of the book talks about what i call the yardstick rule, which is the essence of what the rule of law is about which is it doesn't matter who the parties are before you. the whole idea of law is that justice is blind. that is why lady justice and the

statues is blindfolded. you get the same justice whether you are a man or woman, republican or democrat. in the book i say as a thought thesement, just pretend allegations about ukraine were against president obama instead of against president trump. how would you vote? i set each senator should look in the mirror in the morning and ask themselves that very simple question. it is very much true for democrats as republicans. for me, i believe the answer is very clear. i don't -- i left president obama. but i think if he did this, i would be the first one to march down t tre and sayay, "you are t of their." it is surprising to me that republicans have marched in lockstep so much so they are afraid to even have witnesses stop it has kinda become a party of t the three monkeys seeing no evil, hear no evil, willfully closing the rise and e ears to anything to the

coununtry. ththat is the sasad thing for m. i i believe in a party system. i believe in vibrant debate. what i'm saying right now is the collapse of e e republican party. they stand for nothing if they cannot stand for the m most sime basic precepts of the rule off we don'tich is -- heck, want a president who cheats in his reelection. , who wouldal katyal you like to see as the senate impeachment trial continues testify and what kind of documents you think should be brought in as evidence? is basicallyere two groups of people i would like to testify. then i have to go. the e first is, i think the most important person, as we were talking about a moment ago, is president trump himself.. his whole defefense is, "i had clear motives. i did nothing wrong. i wanted to fight corruption in

ukraine." if you think so, tell it under oath to the american people. let's see what they think of that explanation. i think he is the most imimportt witness given the defense, given all of the allegations against him, including now by his own national security advisor john bolton. second, the witnesses with first-hand information that the president has blocked so far from testifying. so that is john bolton, the former national, mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, john duffy, the office of management and budget official, and secretary of state mike pompeo. i think it is that group of five witnesses and the documents that they had in relation to the ukraine situation that we would like to see. thank you foral, spending this time with us. former acting u.s. solicitor general in the obama administration georgetown , university law professor. neal katyal is the co-author of

"impeach: the case against donald trump." when we come back, "coded bias." neufeld has premiered here at the sundance film festival taking on racial and gender bias in artificial intelligence. ay with us. ♪mumusic eak]k]

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we are broadcasting from the sundance film festival in park city, utah, from park city tv where a new film looks at the racial and gender prejudice baked into artificial intelligence technology like facial recognition. the film is called "coded bias." nermeen: earlier this month,

cambridge, massachusetts, voted to ban facial recognition, joining a growing number of cities in thu.u.s., clududin san francisco, tt t have ouawed the artificl inlligenceiting flawe technology. amy: a recent study found thatat fafacialecogognion idedeified african american and asi f faces incorrectly to 100 times mo thanhihite fes. the studbyby theatioiona instite e of staarards a techlogygy fnd thahaa photo dabasese used by l lawnforceme incorrecy identied nativ ericans the higst rates neeen: the danger of flood artifialal intligegencand itit increasing omnipresee e in dly life is thfofocus a n new film " "ded bias the fi begins th joy buolwini, a searchert the mimedia la who disvevers at mososfacial rognititi softwareoes not cogngniz rker skied or fele faces when sheas to we a white ma to bebeecogninid by a rot

e herself is progrgramng. e goesesn to reveal that arfificial intelligencis not inacact a utraral ientifif toolbut instead reflts the biasesnd inequities ofider ciciety. amy: this is joy buolamwmwi testifyingefore coressss i may. >> i am algoritic biaia researer. reseah system sold b ibm, crosoft,nd amon. u have aeady hea facial recognitn and reted chnologi to havelaws. in one tt ran, amon recognion evenailed onhe fa of rah winfreylabeling herale. i've had to sort to terally wearina white masthatat m face detecd by somof the chnology codi in whit fes the lt thg i expeed to beoingt m.t., an arican n icenter o of

innovati. w given e use ofhis techlogy for mass surveillce, noaving myace tected could bseen as nefit. but besis beingmployed r diensing tletaper, in china e technogy is bng us to tra uhur musl minoties. beyond being ased, the are many wayforhis techlogy to fail. among e most pressing our misidentification secondly to false arrest and accusations. steak and identity is more than an inconvenience -- estate and identity is more than an inconvenience and can lead to grave consequences. amy: joy buolamwini joins us now in park city at the sundance film festival. theg with shalini kantayya, director of the film "coded bias." welcome to democracy now! take it from there, joy. how did you end up testify before congress? take us on your journey from m.i.t., discovering that your

face is one that would be recognized so if you are times when artificial intelligence technology is used than others. maybe that is protection, who knows? absolutely. my journey started as a grad student. i was working on in our logic that used face detection technology. i found that it did not detect my face that will until i put on a white mask. it was that white mask experience that led to questioning, well, how do computers see in the first place? how does artificial intelligence being used? if my face is not being detected in this context, is it just me or other people? amy: step back. what does artificial intelligence mean? >> ai is about giving machines is about giving machines

what we perceive to be somewhat intelligent from a human perspective. so this can be around perceiving the world, giving computers eyes, voice recognition, can also be about communication. think about chat box. ornk about talking to siri alexa. another component artificial intelligence is about discernment or making judgments. this can become really dangerous if you're deciding how risky somebody is or if they should be hired or fired because these decisions can impact people's lives in a material way. nermeen: can you talk about the origins of artificial intelligence? you go over it a bit in the film "coded bias." >> she does a great job of taking it all the way back to dartmouth where you had a group males coming together to decide what intelligence might look like. here you are saying, something that looks like intelligence. the thing about artificial intelligence is what it is changes. as machines get better at specific kinds of tasks, you might say that is not truly

intelligence. it is a moving line. amy: shalini kantayya, why don't you talk about how you came up with the idea for "coded bias." of this central figure film. take the history further. >> basically, i was sort of like a scieience fiction fanatic. i like reading about technology and imagining the future. i think so much of what we think about artificial intelligence comes from scieience fiction. it is s sort of f the stuff of " blade runner" and "the terminator." whenen i started readiding and listening to ted talks by joy and another mathematician named , ihy o'neill other women realize that artificial intelligence was something entirely different in the now. it was becoming a gatekeeper, making automated decisions about who gets hired, who gets health care, who could college. joy's work, ired

was just captivated by this young woman who is disrupting the disruptors. amy: let's go to a clip "coded bias "coded bias from your remarkable film." this shows police in ldodon stopping a young bckck tee >> tl me is happenin close this young blackidid in scscho unifofo got stopped as a reresultf a a mah. to come down that streeto o one side. thorough s searcd him. four plainclothes officers who .tped him after that,d him mamaybe or r 15 minutes of searching and checking h. they cambaback a said

they may have just stopped because of mididentied.. he was a bit shaken. his friendarare the. th cououldot belelve what happeded to him. you are misidentied by tir system this is annnocent -year-ol chilstopped pole as a result of the facial recognition misidentification. amy: that is a clip from "coded bias." joy buolamwini, explain further what to lace here. the misidentification, the identification. some might perversely say it is better for this technology to fail so the people can't be

identified, but this is the opposite case. >> absolutely. you are saying earlier maybe not being identified as a good thing, but then there are the misidentififications that have a real-world impact. in the clip and in the film we see the work of big brother watch u.k. scenario, bigular brother watch u.k. was able to trap what was -- track whatatas going on in london. one of the things they showed in their study face off was that you have all positive match rates of over 90%. so you see this one example here but they also have reports where more than 2400 innocent people were mismatched. it is not just the case of, oh, you're not detected. that might be sometimes. but you could be misidentified as somebody. amy: we're playing this clip at a time when "the new york times" reports london's police department said it would begin using facial recognition to spot

criminal sususpects with video cameras as they walk the streets , adopting the level of surveillance that is rare outside china. because be on many of the facial recognition systems used elsewhere, which match a photo against a database. the new technology uses software that can immediately identify people on a police watchlist as soon as they are found on a video camera. >> i think you might need to say "attempt to identify." oftentimes the claims that are made about these technologies don't necessarily match up to the reality. earlier you spoke about the national institute of standards and technology studies. they studied more than 189 algorithms from 99 different companies. so this is the majority of the facial recognition technology that is out there. racial bias, gender bias, age bias as well. so if you have a face, have a place in the conversation.

we a all need to be concncerned. i think it is highly irresponsible to deploy technologies that we already know have significant flaws, that we already know can be abused. it is common sense to place a moratorium until we are at a better place. nermeen: another place that you profile in the documentary is china. you speak to this woman at some length. a couple of questions, how did you get access? and your response to the fact she actually supported -- whatat does it come the social credit system? explain what that is, how it works, and what your sense of the kind of support that the system has in china. joy, along the same lines as what you were talking about earlier, in places like china where the artificial intelligence and facial recognition -- the technology is developed there. is there similar bias?

if so, what is it? >> i got access s through l locl production company inn chinana. i feel this woman kind of gave usus insight into this social credit system that is coming up in china to sort of where they're using facial recognition in tandem with the social credit system. -- basically, they're tracking you, watching you, and scoring you. not only what you do impacts your score, but what your friends do impact your score. i -- who isoman who featured in the film says, in fact, we don't have to trust our own senses anymore. we can rely on the sort of social credit score to actually have integrity and who we trust and don't trust. know,k in the film, you

sort of what to think, oh, that is for a a galaxy far,r, far awy from the u.s.. in the making of this film, i saw all kinds of parallels of that type of scoring that is happening here in the u.s. and other places around the world. nermeen: explain how you see it is comparable or could be. >> is amy website so poignantly in the film, we are all being scored all the time from our uber scores to facebook likes. all of that information is being tracked and analyzed all of the time. we are all being rated all of the time. that kind of tracking can impact how much we pay for insurance, what kind of opportunities are shown to us online. so verery much of becomes an algorithmic determinism. amy: joy? >> to the question of how are the systems working in china in our first study: gender shades, we looked at ibm, microsoft, but we also looked at face plus

plus, a billion-dollar tech startup in china. infound similar racial bias gender bias. but overall, when they have done studies on ai systems developed in china, they tend to work better on chinese faces, right than those developed in western countries. one thining i did want to bringp related to china and data collection is this data colonialism that we are starting to see. we have reports of chinese companies going to african facial providing recognition or surveillance technologies in exchange for something very precious, the biometric data of the citizens. parallel to what we had with the slave trade where you are extracting bodies, now you are extracting digital bodies in service of a global trade because even when you talked about is going on in london, they are using technology from a inpany called nec based

japan. you have to think about the global context for how these technologies spread around the world. >> just to add to that, china has unfettered access to data. it is now mandated that if you want to access the internet in china, you must submit to facial recognition. so that is the basis for which they are building this kind of scoring system. amy: i want to go to another clip from "coded bias." this is the auth of the book lglgorits ofof oressioio" loong at th outco, for example, when americans are set against and selected and optimized for failure. so it is like looking f a partulular pfilele o people who can t t a surimeme mortgage and bettgggainst their failure,

then foreclosing on them a wipi o out tir w weah. thatas anlgorithm game that camout of wl strt. during the mortge crisisyou hathe largt wipeou of black alth in the history of the uned states. just like that. this is what i mea by algorithmic oppression the tyranny of these types of practices of discrimination have just become opaque. anotherant to go to clip of "coded bias" that features a woman who was subjected to a recidivism risk algorithm which judges and probation officers used to calculate the risk of a person reoffending. the scoring send him -- system was investigated and found to be biased. to my probation oicer

and she lls s me have e rereport once a week. unlike,, who? did you just the i jtt accomplied? i got gaful emplment. i ju got t citatio, , one from t citity uncil l d the mayor. yoseriously going put me report every week? r what? i d't serve e be on high sksk protionon. >> wasn a meeting with the obobatiodepartme. th were meionininghey haha this algorithm that labedd people high, medium, or lo risk so i knew the alririthm decid what risk lel you we. educated me enoh to go ck to my po wou b be like, you me to tl l me y canan't put into cap anythi positivi have dodone tcountera the results of what thislglgorit is sang? e was like, no, ther's no waway. this computer orrules the discernmenofof audge andhe po togetr. >> and by labeling you hh risk and requirgg you to report in

person, you cld lose your job thatouould he made y higigh risksk >> tt is what hurtrtheost erything i h done up tohat ment -- d i'm still looked at like a risk. i feel like everything i'm doing this for nothing. amy: shalini kantayya is director of "coded bias." those clips we just played. as we wrap up, what about regulation? >> these algorithms are impacting all of us in the most -- in our civil rights and we need legislation. we need meaningful legislation around algorithms. amy: and the explanation of algorithms breast nonscientists? >> algorithms are essentially processes that are meant to come to give or solve a particular task. when we talked about ai, we're talking about systems that can perceive the world, that can communicate, and most importantly, make determinations. these determinations impact our

lilives. amy: thank you s so muchch forog withth us, joy buolamwini, researcher at t the m.i.t. media lab anand founder ofof the algorithmimic justicee leagugue. we will link toto her speeches d her congngressional testimony at dedemocracynow.org. and shalini kakantayya''s didirr of the newew film that has just premiered here at the sundance film festival called "coded bias ." broadcast.t for our on friday at 2:00 p.m., i will be speaking here in park city, utah, at the museum right next to dolly's bookstore about impeachment and elections. next tuesdsday, i will be in washington, d.c., just before the state of the union. i will be interviewing the founding director of the smithsonian's national museum of african-american history and culture as 6:00 at busboys and poets. noon, nermeen shaikh will be moderating a panel with the squad at howard university.

the four congress members will be with her at howard university at noon february 7. you can get all the details at democracynow.org.