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https://www.themarysue.com/lets-talk-about-the-sydney-sweeney-of-it-all/
Sydney Sweeney is always a topic of conversation on the internet whether it be good or bad. Now, people are potentially outing her address because they wanted to prove something about an ad she did. Frankly, enough already.
Rumors swirled online after Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle ad that she is registered to vote under the Republican party in Florida. Famously, your registration doesn’t mean that’s what you voted for in an actual election. It only really matters when it comes to primary voting. Besides that, publicly, Sweeney has supported anti-MAGA causes such as women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and more.
Sydney Sweeney is always a topic of conversation on the internet whether it be good or bad. Now, people are potentially outing her address because they wanted to prove something about an ad she did. Frankly, enough already.
Rumors swirled online after Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle ad that she is registered to vote under the Republican party in Florida. Famously, your registration doesn’t mean that’s what you voted for in an actual election. It only really matters when it comes to primary voting. Besides that, publicly, Sweeney has supported anti-MAGA causes such as women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and more.
If Taika Waititi Is In for the Judge Dredd Universe but Karl Urban Is Out, Do We Even Want to Watch?
The announcement of Taika Waititi directing the next Judge Dredd movie and possibly steering the franchise in a new direction instantly polarized the fandom. One side of the Venn diagram contains those who know that Dredd is basically a satirical mirror held up to state powers and bureaucratic cruelty, and welcome Waititi’s addition to the project. The other side, however, isn’t so enthusiastic. Not only did they spend thirteen years waiting for Dredd 2 with Karl Urban, they now have to watch as the man who made Thor: Love and Thunder plays with their favorite IP.
Unfortunately, it would seem that Karl Urban won’t be back wearing Dredd’s helmet, at least not in this project, so the question remains: if Waititi is in, but Urban isn’t, do we even want to watch the upcoming Judge Dredd movie? And why are some fans, while still in love with Urban’s version of the character, still excited about Taika Waititi’s take on Judge Dredd? Well, finding the answer to that question comes down to why you loved Dredd in the first place, and whether you prefer your dose of satirical fascism delivered by movies or comic books.
Those in the former camp fell hard for the dystopian chaos of 2012’s Dredd, drawn to Karl Urban’s ruthless judgments, the sheer gun violence, and the promise to never soften the edges. They’re probably not thrilled about the chance he won’t return for the upcoming release. Urban wasn’t the first to wear the helmet (we don’t talk about the first), but he was easily the best. And it wasn’t just good casting. The Boys star delivered a performance so strong, he became the default Dredd for moviegoers who never cracked open a single issue of 2000 AD.
His portrayal was so exceptional and so monolithic that he became the benchmark all future Dredds will be measured against. Urban was so committed to the role that he basically transcended it, becoming to Dredd what Robert Downey Jr. is to the MCU’s Tony Stark/Iron Man. For the segment of the fandom that loved Urban’s version of the character, swapping him out for a different actor does feel like erasing the one cinematic version that finally got what 2000 AD was about.
However, if you are a fan of 2000 AD, Waititi’s arrival could be the best move the franchise ever made towards a more faithful adaptation. For the uninitiated, Judge Dredd comes from the pages of the 2000 AD comic book, which is a four-decades-deep institution that blends a grim dystopia with sketch comedy. Half of its stories are nothing but jokes; admittedly, they are deadly serious jokes, but jokes nonetheless. The world of 2000 AD is horrible and grotesque simply because the systems within that world are both horrible and grotesque.
The fascism in that comic book is so overexaggerated that it’s borderline horrific and often delivered with a punchline that has a tendency to curdle in your throat a second too late. And delivering such punchlines is where Waititi really shines. While his work on Thor: Love and Thunder wasn’t something to write home about (to say the least), his work on Jojo Rabbit was nothing short of exceptional. Sadly, the internet remembers the former much more than the latter, which is the source of discomfort may fans feel over Waititi’s involvement in a Dredd project.
However, if we take a closer look at Jojo Rabbit (and you should if you haven’t already), we can see that Waititi is perfectly capable of making the satire cut and the comedy sting. Under his pen and direction, Jojo Rabbit managed to successfully satirize fascism without trivializing the massive trauma it caused. This approach is precisely what an adaptation of 2000 AD needs to be successful on the silver screen, and if we look beyond Thor: Love and Thunder, we’ll see that Waititi is perfectly capable of delivering what Dredd audiences want.
With that said, doubting Waititi’s talent isn’t the sole reason why fans are skeptical over his involvement. Rumors suggest that the upcoming Dredd movie might be a pilot for kick-starting a new franchise universe (because, why not?) across film and television. While 2000 AD certainly has enough depth for that to happen, building a cinematic universe comes with its own set of challenges. These often result in deviating from the source material in one way or another, which could end up alienating a good chunk of the fanbase and ruining the project.
The brilliance of 2012’s Dredd lies in its self-containment. It wasn’t a pilot for a broader project, but a bullet that hit the mark. Moving away from that recipe runs the risk of turning Dredd into a product and shoving the ideas it discusses under the rug. And we’ve already seen that Waititi is at his best when smuggling complicated ideas in mass-market packages (Jojo Rabbit), and at his worst when trying to distill an idea from what’s obviously nothing more than a product. The latter refers to Thor: Love and Thunder, and Disney’s focus on quantity over quality.
Given Taika Waititi’s talent for satire, if he and writer Drew Pierce really lean into the dark humor, the bureaucratic absurdity, and the sheer banality of authoritarianism, they could deliver a movie that doesn’t just look like 2000 AD, but also feels, breathes, and thinks like it. So, while it’s an indisputable truth that Urban’s Dredd was iconic, if Waititi plays his cards right, his Dredd could be much more than that; it could be ideological.
The post If Taika Waititi Is In for the Judge Dredd Universe but Karl Urban Is Out, Do We Even Want to Watch? appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
The rise of personal computing in the ’80s and ’90s gave birth to the idea that the technology could be finally used to empower the individual, democratize knowledge, and create new opportunities. The optimism that surrounded those ideas exploded with the dot-com boom during the late ’90s and early 2000s, and it was further exacerbated with the subsequent rise of social media and the smartphone revolution in the 2010s. Now, we’re witnessing the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which is rapidly transforming many industries and spheres of our lives.
But has the tech really made our society better, or did it make us even more confused and way too reliant on the conveniences it promises? There’s an enduring and harmful notion that technology is objective and neutral when it comes to race and gender. For the most part, that actually is the case. However, does the same apply to machines that are trained to think and draw conclusions in a way that mimics that of humans? Apparently, that does not seem to be the case because there’s ample evidence of AI subtly perpetuating and even enhancing the biases of their creators — including racial biases.
In 2018, Joy Buolamwini — we mentioned her in our discussion about 5 Black Female CEOs Leading the Charge in Tech — discovered that the facial recognition algorithms in her lab can’t adequately detect the faces of people of African descent. She even tried scanning her own face, and the AI algorithms couldn’t recognize her unless she put on a white mask. This indicated the existence of bias in AI systems that are often trained on images of predominantly light-skinned men, which just so happen to comprise the vast majority of the tech industry.
Boulamwini’s research uncovered large gender and racial biases in AI systems that major tech giants, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon, develop. For context, the systems developed by these companies were substantially better at distinguishing male faces compared to female faces, with less than one percent error for light-skinned males. For darker-skinned women, on the other hand, the error percentage soared to an alarming 35%. The issue isn’t persistent in facial recognition alone; other AI robots also exhibit racism and gender discrimination.
For example, image-generating AI systems are trained on billions of images, and many of them initially identified women as “homemakers” and people of color as criminals or janitors. In fact, many generative engines weren’t even able to generate images that would even resemble a Black woman; artist Stephanie Dinkins reported that some algorithms she worked with would produce pink-shaded humanoids shrouded in black cloaks.
Generative AI has come a long way since then, but the issue of racial bias remains deeply rooted in AI systems due to the way they’re created. Predictive policing is a painfully obvious example of AI systems reproducing racial biases found in their training data. These AI systems make assessments about future crimes, who might commit them, and where, based on data such as location and personal information. But therein lies the issue, which could potentially exacerbate policing or even over-policing in communities along racial and ethnic lines.
This is where data really comes into play; historically speaking, law enforcement focuses more on marginalized communities and neighborhoods, and as a result, members of those communities are overrepresented in police records that comprise the bulk of AI training data. Predictive policing AI systems will then use said data to predict where future crimes will occur, leading to increased police deployments in such communities. To make things even worse, recording new crimes in overpoliced areas will create a “positive” feedback loop, which will reinforce the algorithms’ biased predictions.
So, the real issue is the bias that’s in the data used to train AI systems, and that data is often unrepresentative or straight-out discriminatory for people of color, women, and other marginalized groups. And law enforcement isn’t the only thing affected by these faulty systems. AI housing discrimination is also a real thing, as algorithms often affect mortgage qualifications, tenant selection, employment (we previously talked about this), and financial lending discrimination.
Most of these systems evaluate tenants, job applicants, and potential borrowers based on data that includes court records, eviction and criminal histories, and many other datasets that contain their own biases that reflect the systemic racism and sexism baked into them. As a result, people are being denied housing despite their ability to pay the rent, and qualified professionals are being denied job opportunities simply because an algorithm deemed them ineligible, unqualified, or unworthy.
The case of Shudu Gram, a Black digital supermodel, adds another layer to the controversy about racial bias in AI. Shudu was designed by a white British photographer to look like a dark-skinned Black woman, and she quickly gained popularity on social media, despite not being a real person. Though praised for he beauty, Shudu’s creation sparked backlash over what many called a new form of digital blackface.
Furthermore, critics argue that when a white creator profits from a virtual Black identity, without hiring, crediting, or collaborating with real Black women, it creates the illusion of diversity without delivering it. This serves as a troubling reminder that AI is not only replicating biased data, but also being used to control and commodify identities that have long been marginalized and excluded from industries like fashion.
The truth is that AI systems aren’t inherently racist; they just picked it up from humans who train them. The datasets these systems are being trained with are obviously incomplete and imperfect and often rely on different variables, such as education level, socioeconomic background, and location, to perpetuate biases. So, we can only conclude that the biases these systems exhibit reflect the biases of their creators, regardless of whether those biases are intentional on a personal level or not.
AI is rapidly transforming various industries, but its broad, unregulated, and often unethical applications in various fields are concerning. Facial recognition systems misidentify people of color, hiring algorithms unintentionally discriminate, and AI amplifies systemic inequities across critical sectors like law enforcement, healthcare, and education. The underlying causes and potential solutions reveal the urgency of addressing these flaws to ensure the technologies shaping our future don’t perpetuate the injustices of our past.
The post The Alarming Reality of Racial Bias in AI appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.