Google Photos AI still can't label gorillas after racist errors

AI may be progressing rapidly, but it appears Google still hasn't quite fixed an eight-year problem with its image recognition system: identifying pictures of gorillas accurately. The company was criticized when a software developer, Jacky Alciné, found the image recognition system deployed in its Photos app in 2015 had …

[hitmouse]

Google Photos doesn't allow you to search for photos with words that (only Americans I guess) would find unseemly, even if the photos and albums are labelled with those words. I have photos from European towns that have been labelled automatically (via encoding) with words that have a different meaning in English, but Google slams its "one-size fits all languages and cultures" approach.

AFACIT OneDrive and Dropbox don't have this issue with the same files and words.

[unimaginative]

I recently wanted a Youtube video to which the channel had added an apology for using the word "faggots" because so many people were upset. They were talking about the British food, not the American slur.

Americans just take it for granted that everyone must conform to their language and culture. In the name of equality and diversity, of course.

[Paul Crawford]

That is a common annoyance because fag=cigarette and faggot=pork meatballs (or occasionally sticks) are far more common use in the UK than the sexual slur the USA seems to take for granted.

[Orv]

I had a Brit insist to me that using the n-word to refer to Black people was common and accepted there. I never figured out if he was telling me the truth or just covering up his own bigotry. (He was a total jerk so it could have been either.)

[Paul Crawford]

No, it is unacceptable to refer to anyone using that.

However, it is not such a common UK insult against those with African heritage (there are a few more common words which for obvious reasons I won't repeat), and it has been used in the past without such race baggage (e.g. the genuine name of the RAF squadron's dog that later was referenced in the Dambusters film due to it being a black Labrador, and the word's origins from the Latin for black).

What has changed (maybe not for the better) is now simply mentioning the word in any context is unacceptable, where as before you had to use it directed at someone (or some group) for it to be seen as insulting and provocative.

[Orv]

Yeah, the actual incident was him referring to a waiter (who had just walked away) as "a big n----r." He said this wasn't offensive in the UK.

[Paul Crawford]

I'm pretty sure in most situations that would be offensive.

If the waiter joked about himself using that expression folks would probably laugh, as it has not quite got the historical issues that the USA has with the word, but referring to someone else is a very different matter.

[bernmeister]

Latin

Latin grammer is based on gender and riddled with racist terms. But what can you do? A large proportion of the world is Latin and the language has roots from more than 2000 years back with surprisingly little change.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Was listening to a US history podcast review of Marc Morris's latest book - it consisted of 30mins apologising/justifying the use of the offensive title = "The Anglo Saxons"

[Anonymous Coward]

shifting language

British (esp formerly) a young public school boy who performs menial chores for an older boy or prefect. verb fags, fagging or fagged.

I always assumed that THAT was the meaning that devolved to a derogatory term for homosexual. It also can simply mean "tired/exhausted" in the UK, which was at least very common usage 50 years ago.

[JamesTGrant]

In less tense times it was always very funny (to me, a Brit) to say in an American bar ‘I’m just going outside to smoke a fag’

Very childish, I know.

[Piro]

Don't forget that if you're missing cigarettes, and you wish to acquire one, it can get even more risqué:

"Can I bum a fag?"

[Philip Stott]

And given that the filter on a cigarette is known as the butt over here in Blighty, leaves ample scope for fag butt tomfoolery.

[jmch]

Or even, “could I bum a fag“ as in could I borrow a cigarette

Edit - I see Piro beat me to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Americans just take it for granted that everyone must conform to their language and culture

The stupidest being that the word master is now off limit. Stupid cunts. Can I say that?

[Korev]

> The stupidest being that the word master is now off limit.

You mean it's on the black list?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a low-key rant I've been having for years. Certain sectors of society in the USA love to complain about cultural appropriation and colonisation, all the while engaging in both on an industrial scale. They appropriate other cultures by claiming links to them that are as tenuous as certain politicians' grip on reality, then they colonise by ignorantly demanding we conform our cultures to their whims, in order to avoid them feeling the slightest offence.

When rightly they're called out on it, they retreat to "but we just want everyone to be safe", or some other defensive position, which they adopt to try and recast those people defending the integrity of their own culture as bigots and racists.

The invasion of American racial discourse has been utterly toxic to race relations in every european country it has parasitised. We spend so much time worrying about how to avoid offending Americans that we no longer have the wherewithal to fully understand, let alone deal with, the actual issues surrounding race, ethnicity, and culture in our own nations. Everything must cater to America's debate on race; everything must be perceived through that lens. We are no longer distinct ethnicities and cultures, but are merely various arrangements of "black", "white", and "not white", to be pilloried and exploited as America sees fit.

[CowHorseFrog]

After the N word became the most evil word in the universe, not once have i ever heard any American mention anything about Africans in Africa. Every single time they get attention its always about THEM. Sure blacks in America have a hard time, but what about blacks in Africa ? Surely they have it worse and at the very least deserve a mention.

Another example is how its perfectly fine for a black American athlete to get a multi million contract to endorse shoes, but its not racist or slavery to pay thousands of children working in a factory a dollar a day to make to the shows. Thats only answer for that is of course only Americans are people and everyone else are subhuman, so its perfectly fine to exploit asian factory workers like this. The inbalance in this case is far worse than slave master on plantations in the American south ever was.

But hey skipping blacks in Africa is not racist.

[hitmouse]

I tried to enter words in a US newspaper word puzzle last month. "Cracker" was not permissible, but their lists of allowable words included "titty, titties, ..." That circles back to the issue of why male nipples in photos are permissible but female ones aren't.

[jmch]

Have you been visiting a certain Austrian village that had to change name to avoid annoying English , by any chance?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/5121+Fugging,+Austria/@48.0686301,12.8652678,12z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4775d4854dbcba19:0x802456ee60b72a17!8m2!3d48.0673299!4d12.8633177!16zL20vMDE2cHE2

[AMBxx]

Just back from Bridge of Feugh in Aberdeenshire. Feugh sounds like a scouser pronouncing the F-word!

[Paul Crawford]

You should visit Cockbridge, much more tittering to be had:

https://www.visitscotland.com/info/towns-villages/strathdon-cockbridge-p244141

[Paul Crawford]

Have you been visiting a certain Austrian village that had to change name to avoid annoying English , by any chance?

Not so much "annoying the English" but more of "stop those thieving bastards stealing our town signs"?

[Francis Boyle]

You mean

this one.

[John Doe 12]

Racist?

Racism requires human intent before it actually exists. A computer mistakenly labelling a black person as a gorilla is very unlikely to be a racist act unless whoever supplied the learning data actually specified "black human" = "gorilla".

I get so bored with people spraying the "R" word around as it devalues the meaning for the times when racism truly is happening. People get fatigued with the overuse of anything as nicely described in the fable of the boy who cried wolf.

[gnasher729]

Re: Racist?

It’s still absolutely insulting. I think the people concerned complained about the insult, not about the technical reason for it.

[cornetman]

Re: Racist?

For it to be insulting, there has to be intent. I don't think that anyone is seriously suggesting that this was a deliberate act.

[Dan 55]

Re: Racist?

We all know this is due to not giving it enough training data. Just enough training data was given to confirm existing biases and the results were confirmed as okay. Then later on when this was found out, the solution was "ah, well, fixing this is too much like hard work and why would black people want to tag photos anyway?"

[Jon 37]

Re: Racist?

The problem is that, no matter how well trained the AI is, there is no way to guarantee it won't make the same mistake again. At least with the current state of AI. So blocking potentially offensive answers is the only way to avoid future PR problems for the companies involved.

[jmch]

Re: Racist?

“ no matter how well trained the AI is, there is no way to guarantee it won't make the same mistake again. “

I'm pretty sure that if Google were willing to throw enough training data with pictures of black people and pictures of gorillas correctly tagged, the recognition would be far far better. Not guaranteed perfect of course, but not easily reproducible either.

But Google didn't bother with the resources to retrain

[unimaginative]

Re: Racist?

I agree, but dealing with real problems is a lot of effort and does not make you feel virtuous so easily.

I have experienced racism in three different countries (three continents, in fact) and it is different everywhere - its not one phenomenon. The peculiar American sensitivity is a reaction to American history and culture. I realised it was different a long time ago, but the brilliant book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson made me understand what it was. Race in the US is like caste in South Asia - vicious, deeply culturally ingrained, and impossible to escape even over generations.

This can lead to silly thinking when dealing with other cultures. One (apparently intelligent) American I met was deeply convinced hat CS Lewis was racist because Shift the ape was "obviously" meant to represent black people. The fact that someone writing children's stories with inter-racial marriage (Aravis and Cor ) and mixed race good buys (Telmarine descended later Narnians) was probably not writing racist metaphor was beyond him.

[abend0c4]

Re: Racist?

"Racism requires human intent before it actually exists"

Or human intent to deny its existence.

Computers don't act autonomously (yet). Their output is the consequence of human intent.

[Orv]

Re: Racist?

In this case the problem was almost certainly a training set deficient in pictures of Black people. Training sets tend to mostly have people in them who look like the people assembling the training sets. This is also why facial recognition systems are so much worse at distinguishing Black faces.

[abend0c4]

Re: Racist?

>Training sets tend to mostly have people in them who look like the people assembling the training sets

That's a consequence of the collection of data being necessarily skewed in favour of those people considered to be of greater value over some considerable period of time. Individual pictures aren't being selected for the training data, huge swathes of online data are ingested largely unfiltered and they reflect all the small decisions by individuals that led to those particular images being taken, often now some decades ago - and much longer for written texts.

Unless you wish to perpetuate those historic value judgments, you have to make an active effort to compensate and I'm not sure that's possible with the current state of the technology. Consequently there will be areas where the output from these systems will be (even) more flawed than others, to the point of having negative value.

[Mike007]

Re: Racist?

"In this case the problem was almost certainly a training set deficient in pictures of Black people. Training sets tend to mostly have people"

Unfortunately not. Although that is also an issue.

Training sets did historically have fewer black people, which any competent company should be aware of and rectify these days... however even if you have an equal number of black and white people you will still get worse results for black people due to the lower contrast. My understanding is that you need to bias it the other way and have more black people than white in order to get similar accuracy.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Racist?

>My understanding is that you need to bias it the other way and have more black people than white in order to get similar accuracy.

Or not. Police facial recognition used mugshots. Proportion of black people arrested (and so in mugshots) >> proportion of black people in population = system flags more black people as criminal

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Racist?

Or, maybe it's just a reflection of the population distribution where the AI was trained? I assume there are other facial recognition systems being trained and used in other parts of the world where white people are in the minority. Are they suffering the same or different problems with bias? China is big on facial recognition cameras in their cities. I'm sure places such as India or South Africa, as examples, are also using facial recognition. We don't appear to be seeing any stories on their success rates or biases.

Maybe something for El Reg to look into?

[xyz]

Re: Racist?

C'mon... I just spent 30 secs looking at pictures of gorillas and then pictures of "black man" and apart from colour similarities there was no way in hell you could possibly confuse the two unless you were being racist. If an "AI" can't tell the difference then god knows what it was "trained" on.

[A. Coatsworth]

Re: Racist?

>> If an "AI" can't tell the difference then god knows what it was "trained" on.

That is precisely the point: there is no way to know what characteristics from the training data did the model take to reach its conclusions. It is offensive, it is idiotic, but it is not "racism" because there is no will attached to it. It is just lousy training data paired wit the inherent obfuscation of the training process.

This is not different from another object recognition model where it was found out it was looking at the texture of the animals and not shape or contours to name the animal. https://www.theregister.com/2019/02/13/ai_image_texture/

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: god knows what it was "trained" on.

All these so called 'AI' systems are still GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)

So much for progress.

[Orv]

Re: Racist?

If the data set was scraped off the internet it's likely it has a lot of pictures of black people mislabeled as gorillas. It was a common insult for Michelle Obama in right wing memes for several years.

[Graham Dawson]

Re: Racist?

There are lots of examples of machine learning algorithms that appeared to be very accurate, but whichwere eventually discovered to be making their "judgements" based on things that were entirely tangential to the expectations of the developers and trainers. They don't analyse an image and understand what it is, they just determine statistical similarities. Based on the fact that both a picture of a gorilla and a picture of an african have a large, dark area roughly where the face is, it's not at all surprising that "AI" decides they're both the same. The most famous example was the "AI" that determined that any picture with snow and trees in it was a picture of a wolf.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

"Racism requires human intent before it actually exists."

Does that mean that by your definition of racism, any discrimination on grounds of race has to be conscious and deliberate? I would have thought that racism, like misogyny and homophobia, could easily be subconscious even if learned behaviour.

I agree that the revelation that the UK's Post Office, when prosecuting sub-postmasters based on erroneous data from the Horizon system, classifying people by ethnicity* (with some appalling language) was overtly racist (how could the ethnicity of an individual be remotely relevant?), but a lot of bigotry and discrimination seems to me to be subconscious.

For example, no organisation would admit to unfair discrimination based on an individual's name, but every one I've encountered uses alphabetical order in some way or another. (The late comedian Dave Allen changed his name from O'Mahoney when he found out that his agent started with the A's when looking for an act to fill a job.)

*https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65730464

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

"how could the ethnicity of an individual be remotely relevant?"

I know, right!? Umm, perhaps take a look at the statics for crime and then think about that. Unless you have some spineless excuse for that, too.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

John Smith 12345: "perhaps take a look at the statics for crime"

I guess you mean that the proportions of black people in prison in the UK and the USA are significantly higher than their proportions of the populations? Research has shown that ethnic white people are on average treated more leniently than black people, less often remanded in custody than let out one parole and black people are sentenced more harshly for the same offences than white people. This is an indication of bias in the white-dominated justice systems, and is not evidence of inherent recidivism in black people. After all, Bernie Madoff, Ken McLay (former head of Enron), Tim Spector, Robert Maxwell, Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris were white.

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/17/proportion-of-remand-prisoners-who-are-minority-ethnic-rises-17-in-six-years#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20September%202021%2C%2015%25%20of%20those%20on,a%20trial%20or%20sentencing%20hearing.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/race_and_ethnicity/#:~:text=You%20can%20also%20see%20a,who%20are%20Black%3A%2038%25%20%2B

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/

Yes, I know I'l get downvoted for this, but if you do, please explain why, and maybe back up your comments with some facts.

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

I read all three of the 'articles'. LOL.

"Research has shown that ethnic white people are on average treated more leniently than black people, less often remanded in custody than let out one parole and black people are sentenced more harshly for the same offences than white people. "

That still doesn't account for the disproportion rate of crimes committed by BAMEs.If fact the Guardian one shows it is going up, then followed by a series of social-babble trying to justify that with parameters that non-BAMEs also have to account for.

All of those reports relate to the increased likelihood of BAMEs being held on remand or receiving higher sentences. Not the fact that crimes were committed.

And when the rates are higher, of course it's the #WHITEMANBAD excuse. The 21st Century catch-all "racism" used to explain uncomfortable truths and facts. Has to be the white mans fault, doesn't it? What else could it be?

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

John Smith 12345: "That still doesn't account for the disproportion rate of crimes committed by BAMEs."

Why do you believe that Black and Minority Ethnic people commit proportionately more crimes than White people? Am I wasting my time asking for a reference for that? Do you actually know any people of colour as friends or colleagues? I am genuinely curious to know the answers.

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

"Why do you believe that Black and Minority Ethnic people commit proportionately more crimes than White people? "

Your own sources were sufficient to prove the point and it isn't a belief, but a fact.

you haven't countered my counter-argument that crime rates for BAMEs show how the ethnicity of an individual is relevant.

I respect your non-kneejerk response. Another example where ethnicity is relevant is in athletics with black people much more highly represented than whites - believed to be because of a slightly different centre of gravity.

Different ethnicities have different individual strengths and weakness, both negative and positive.

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

Here is a source tweet that shows how ethnicity of an individual is relevant:

https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1663273003797364737?s=20

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

You claim my own sources 'prove' your belief that Black and Minority Ethnic people are more likely to commit crimes than white people, however,

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/race_and_ethnicity/#:~:text=You%20can%20also%20see%20a,who%20are%20Black%3A%2038%25%20%2B

states explicitly:

"Racial discrimination in housing, sentencing, and policing frequently explains why data show stark disproportionalities in justice involvement for people of color, particularly Black people."

So I am at a loss to understand why you think pretty much the opposite.

As for your reference to a tweet:

Firstly, there has been much controversy concerning IQ tests, and their cultural bias. Secondly, the division of people into 28 allegedly separate ethnic groupings (including "other asian", WTF does that mean?) is clearly suspect. Thirdly, if you scroll down your link you will come across the headline: "Dinesh D'Souza, adulterous felon and disgraced academic, really embarrasses himself this time" and many others contradicting his post.

Before posting again about ethnicity and race, I reckon you should read:

"How to argue with a racist" by the geneticist, author and broadcaster Adam Rutherford, ISBN 978-1-4746-1124-4, where he uses genuine science to debunk the claims of racial superiority and inferiority. A very readable account.

"The Authoritarian Dynamic' by academic Karen Stenner ISBN 978-0-521-53478-9 which has some interesting things about how white authoritarian people react to black people. It is an academic text, so be prepared for some statistics.

And, if you can (subscription may be required), "What Makes a White Nationalist?" on the New Scientist web site: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831812-300-what-makes-a-white-nationalist/ This contains a link to: https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/terrorism-in-america/what-is-the-threat-to-the-united-states-today/ which clearly shows the number of ideological killings in the USA by terrorists to be vastly more by extreme right wing people (130) than by black people (12).

And, if you have time, "How to talk to a science denier", by Lee McIntyre, ISBN 978-0-262-04610-7, an interesting account of how science deniers generally do not respond to scientific arguments when presented in an adversarial manner.

But, most importantly, go out and meet some of your black peers: scientists, engineers, authors, mathematicians, artists etc. and get to know them, go out for a drink, bowling or invite them home for dinner. You could also look up Sir Jonathan van Tam, or Maggie Adarin-Pocock if you want proof that black people are just as intelligent as white people.

As for knee-jerk reactions, I do try not to, but sometimes it can be quite difficult.

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

lol. you lost the argument so revert to type and call me a racist or white supremacist. I'm not going to read your wall of text there. Just skipped through it cause you still ignore the fact the ethnicity is relevant in the stated cases.

You were doing so well with all your left-wing sources. You went 3 posts before calling me a racist. That is better than I expected.

Despite your sidetracking, you haven't answered my argument yet. You keep falling back on remand, parole, sentences but fail to answer why a higher number of crimes occur based on ethnicity.

The IQ tests are facts. Soften the blow however you want but it doesn't change the facts. Do IQ tests suddenly become invalidated because poor souls like yourself are unhappy about the truths.

I suggest you read about inverted racism. And also 1984 though I don't think you are doublethinking I think you really do believe what you say despite the evidence being contrary.

Ethnicity is relevant in all three of the examples I have provided.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

@ John Smith 12345

I have never called you a racist. You have not supported any of your statements with actual facts, and never shown any statistics supporting your statement that BAME people commit more crimes than white people. I have yet to find any semblance of an actual argument (as in a sequence of statements based on verifiable facts supporting a proposition) in your posts above, you merely repeat your believe in recidivism of BAME people. (I speak as a mathematical logician, so, please enlighten me if I missed a deductive sequence based on verifiable facts in your posts.) I provided a short list of relevant books and an article that I thought you might benefit from reading, the fact that the OP titled this threat "Racist?" and that we are discussing racism and whether there are statistically significant differences between BAME people and White people means that they reference racism and racists, there was no slur intended.

In any case I dislike single word terms to describe people. People can commit racist, misogynistic or homophobic acts, but also have friends who are of different ethnicities, sexualities or sexes. I doubt that anyone is wholly racist.

'IQ tests' may be facts, but the table you link to is frankly ludicrous. Twenty-eight different ethnic groupings! I wonder how these were arrived at, and who split the subjects into them (oh and how many 10-year-olds were in each group). Any psychometric testing has to be done very carefully to have results of any value. For example, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iq-scores-not-accurate-marker-of-intelligence-study-shows/

"More than 100,000 participants joined the study and completed 12 online cognitive tests that examined memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities. They were also asked about their background and lifestyle.

They found that there was not one single test or component that could accurately judge how well a person could perform mental and cognitive tasks. Instead, they determined there are at least three different components that make up intelligence or a "cognitive profile": short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component."

You suggest that I read about 'inverted racism' (did you mean 'reverse racism', Google prefers 'reverse': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_racism *), while you clearly feel confident enough to reject what I said while admitting that you did not bother to read it properly.

I really do believe what I write, and the evidence I have seen supports my argument, not your assertions. (And, no, the spurious table you linked to via Twitter does not count as evidence.)

Oh but this is another wall of text, so you probably haven't got this far. Well, just in case you are still reading, go out and make some friends with your black and minority ethnic peers and try running your beliefs past them .

*"Reverse racism, sometimes referred to as reverse discrimination, is a concept that affirmative action and similar color-conscious programs for redressing racial inequality are a form of anti-white racism. The concept is often associated with conservative social movements and reflects a belief that social and economic gains by black people cause social and economic disadvantages for white people."

[jmch]

Re: Racist?

"That still doesn't account for the disproportion rate of crimes committed by BAMEs.If fact the Guardian one shows it is going up, then followed by a series of social-babble trying to justify that with parameters that non-BAMEs also have to account for."

Crime is highly correlated with poverty, and is also highly correlated with social issues such as single-parent families. Some of that is a vicious circle of BAME people having a higher tendency to crime because of coming from impoverished background, which has it's origins in decades-old or more racism. Some of it is coming from some aspects of black culture - eg see the amount of hip-hop songs that glorify guns and violence, gang warfare, and treating women as sexual objects. If settling down and taking responsibility for your kids is seen by young BAME men as 'acting white' and undesirable compared to playing the field and leave the mum to take care of baby on her own instead.

The truth is that there are very very many highly intertwined historical and cultural reasons for why a disproportionate rate of crimes is carried out by black people, a lot (but not all) of which are rooted in racism. So cutting BAME kids some slack is warranted... as long as part of that 'slack' is the possibility of education rather than jail (which just 'educates' different values). Then at the end of the day, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. People take their own choices, and mature adults* can't keep excusing their behaviour on circumstance forever.

* Biologically speaking, the frontal cortex, which is responsible for, among other things, working out future possible consequences of current decisions, doesn't fully develop until the mid-twenties, which is why teens and young adults have a natural tendency for rash decisions

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

jmch: "Crime is highly correlated with poverty"

Some crimes may be highly correlated with poverty, but definitely not all. The Oxford Bullingdon Club of rich public school educated men had a reputation for hiring a private dining room at a restaurant each term and trashing it, paying for the damage with wads of cash on their way out. That was clearly conspiracy to commit criminal damage but they never got prosecuted. (Former members include former UK Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson, and former Chancellor George Osborn, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullingdon_Club .)

The problem is that you can find crime wherever you look. The current Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police expects hundreds of his current serving officers to be charged with criminal offences, and when Sir Robert Mark joined the MET he described the plainclothes division as "the most corrupt organisation in London", yet very few officers had been prosecuted. As the MET was undoubtedly racist, misogynistic and homophobic at the time, the vast majority of these criminal officers would have been white.

If you do not look for crimes not committed by poor black people, you will skew your statistics.

As I suggested earlier, go out and make friends with your black peers, get to know them and listen to them.

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

""Some of it is coming from some aspects of black culture - eg see the amount of hip-hop songs that glorify guns and violence, gang warfare, and treating women as sexual objects. If settling down and taking responsibility for your kids is seen by young BAME men as 'acting white' and undesirable compared to playing the field and leave the mum to take care of baby on her own instead."

And another area where ethnicity is relevant is statics in that BAMEs have the highest rate of single mothers. Regardless of the 'white guilt' supposed causes you superimpose upon the statics it doesn't change the bare facts and the origin of this little debate: ethnicity is relevant.

To recap:

Crime rate higher for BAMES

Blacks more in sports

IQ tests show difference in ethnicity

BAMEs have higher single mother

All four of those show that ethnicity is relevant in those cases.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Racist?

Regarding IQ test results, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#:~:text=The%20scientific%20consensus%20is%20that%20there%20is%20no%20evidence%20for,explain%20the%20racial%20IQ%20gap.

"The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups. Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap. "

Your statement: "All four of those show that ethnicity is relevant in those cases." is a fallacy, you are claiming that every member of a group is typical of that group, which is not the case. To act as if it were the case is prejudice.

BTW, referring to people as "BAMEs" is insulting, and racist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Racist?

Look just because somebody went to public school and wears salmon trousers and is a conservative doesn't automatically make them a criminal - it's just statistical clustering

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

Again with the strawman. No, it doesn't they are more likely to commit a crime, but it does mean they are more likely do X than Y based on statistical clustering.

[CrackedNoggin]

Re: Racist?

So the crimes committed by the PO and Fujitsu were justifiable based on racial crime statistics?

[John Smith 12345]

Re: Racist?

No, of course not. But you are just straw-manning now. Reddit misses you

[cornetman]

Re: Racist?

> ....could easily be subconscious even if learned behaviour.

True, but even subconcious racism is still intentional.

The problem that I have with modern leftist politics with regards to the shifting landscape of racism is that it has become one of power.

Racism is fundamentally bad because it is incorrect or invalid. As such I consider it a social ill just on that basis alone. As soon as we try to view racism as merely a power dynamic, we forget that to be a racist is to be wrong about the world in so many ways. It's just fallacious thinking.

So now it is apparently OK to make vapid sweeping generalizations about people with pale skin because racism now has little to do with race and everything to do with power. Yet it is still invalid to openly make gross statements about those individuals based on grotesque stereotypes. I thought we had got past this decades ago but the race grievance mongers want to drag us back to the dark ages again.

Real racism exists but to move forward, we need better, smarter thinking. Unfortunately, there is little political clout to be gained by espousing that we *all* be better.

[Orv]

Re: Racist?

I think partly it's just harder to get sympathy when the power dynamic favors you. Christians in the US like to complain about anti-Christian bias, but seeing as they control the entire government, it's hard to argue they're suffering from it. Whining about it does help them when they want the right to discriminate against people with less power, thus further entrenching their own power, though. It's a cynical, but clever strategy of working the refs. I see a lot of claims of anti-white bias as beings similar attempts at manipulation; it's like taking a dive in soccer.

[cornetman]

Re: Racist?

> I think partly it's just harder to get sympathy when the power dynamic favors you.

I suggest that "sympathy" is the wrong word in this case. I don't think that anyone needs sympathy. Again, that is grievance thinking. If you are black, white, asian, Jewish, whatever, if you make foolish claims about individuals based on faulty generalisations based on race then you are a bigot and you need to think better. It's just that simple.

Everytime someone says something vapid like "It's not OK to be white", what on earth could that possibly mean? Most of the time, I think these are just reflections of a complete lack of any thinking on the part of the utterer. When questioned to clarify further, they are usually lost for further comment since they are merely repeating some fashionable mantra that they picked up from a TikTok video.

I want to see a more equitable society in which people think more clearly and rationally across the board.

There is so much historical baggage in the US psyche at the moment that it is difficult to hold a rational, productive conversation in almost any context. Social media doesn't really help the situation since the players are pushing agendas that further their own narcissistic needs and the platforms themselves are rapidly devolving into echo chambers.

What we need is to go back to first principles. Martin Luther King suggested that we should judge the character rather than the colour: he was talking about a better society based on morality and brotherhood. That message is just as relevant today as it was then but we are not teaching these things to our children. So many of them are growing up without any kind of principled foundation on which to live. They are being pumped full of meaningless platitudes about "respect" without any clear understanding of what that actually means. "Tolerance" as a concept is now old hat. Youngsters don't understand how to disagree on anything and understand that much of the time, that is OK and expected. These are the foundations of a pluralistic society understanding that we have differences but bound by some common principles like freedom.

Particularly in the US, I think they are losing their way. Many are being taught to question the very nature of the principled foundation of their country. It's not strange to wonder where this comes from. Is it some kind of foreign influence? Is it just a symptom of late-stage societal progress brought on by super affluence? I dunno. However, to survive into the future, we need to re-evaluate the basics of Western society and remember that people are desperate to come here. They are not leaving in droves for the east. And there is reason for that.

[Orv]

Re: Racist?

Particularly in the US, I think they are losing their way. Many are being taught to question the very nature of the principled foundation of their country. It's not strange to wonder where this comes from. Is it some kind of foreign influence? Is it just a symptom of late-stage societal progress brought on by super affluence? I dunno. However, to survive into the future, we need to re-evaluate the basics of Western society and remember that people are desperate to come here. They are not leaving in droves for the east. And there is reason for that.

I think immigration actually is part of the problem, in a way. For most of its history, white people had a solid majority in pretty much the entire US -- and where they didn't, they could just stop the non-white people from voting. Now in some places they're below 50%, and that's scaring a lot of people who assume that anyone else's gain automatically comes as a loss to them. This is why you see things like Trump promising to end birthright citizenship. Conservative white people are scared and want an ethnostate. Religious groups play into this because religion works best with an outside group to hate.

[cornetman]

Re: Racist?

I don't really see the evidence for that.

There is a ideological political struggle going on in the USA at the moment and race doesn't really have much to do with it. Superficially it looks like race is involved because a lot of black people are aligned with the left and a lot of the right are white (mainly because they are still the majority). I think that there are a lot of reasons for this and it is an immensely complex situation.

Much like religion is often painted as the driver in the struggles in Ireland. Religion is only a symptom of the real struggle which is a historically political one.

Immigration is actually a much bigger problem in the UK. Historically the UK has had a steady influx of immigrants and in the main they have integrated well. However, even in a multi-cultural context, there has to be a measure of agreement on some basic principles by which the people of a country agrees upon whether it be religious, ethnic, political, whatever. Many immigrants to the UK do indeed share these axioms but with the shift to massive influx, there are inevitably some who do not and it is causing a lot of strife.

[Old Tom]

Re: Alphabetic discrimination

As a person of late-alphabet surname initial, I can confirm that alphabetic discrimination is very much alive and well, pervasive and systemic.

[Filippo]

Re: Racist?

>Racism requires human intent before it actually exists.

I'd argue that racism can also arise from biased neglect. For example, white developers of an AI system may train their image recognition model on an overwhelmingly-white training set, and not realize the problem. It's debatable the degree to which the developers themselves deserve blame, but the underlying source of the problem is definitely racism.

[Orv]

Re: Racist?

The great thing about an AI is you can use it to launder discrimination. I mean, by your own admission if I call a Black person a gorilla I'm being racist, but if the AI does it, it's fine. So all I have to do is train an AI with all my prejudices, and now it's perfectly OK because the computer is doing it, not me.

[Winkypop]

Anti-Trump, clearly

Everybody knows he likes watching the Gorilla Channel.

[Alan Bourke]

So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

You know, that thing like blockchain where it's a solution in search of a problem.

[Dinanziame]

Re: So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

Oh no, the autonomous cars are a solution to a very definite problem, which is that we have to drive cars. First, it is an insanely boring task; and second, we regularly kill people while we do it.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

So 90year old drivers might kill lots of people but remember, they vote

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

"First, it is an insanely boring task;"

Speak for yourself!

"and second, we regularly kill people while we do it."

Depends where you live. In most civilised countries, the accidents rates are dropping and relatively low already, apart from maybe the USA where it's 3-5 times higher than most European countries, inc. the UK. Much of the rest of the world, the vehicle accident/death rate seems to be higher the poorer the country, so exactly the places where there may be a case for self-driving but the least likelihood of being able to afford to do so for at least a generation or two, if it ever becomes practical.

[Orv]

Re: So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

So far the AI cars are mostly just killing their occupants, which I guess is an improvement. But it seems unlikely that the current, slapdash way we train AI will ever result in software that's suitable for such a safety-critical task.

[druck]

Re: So yeah how are those autonomous cars coming along ?

First, [Driving] is an insanely boring task

Then take the bus or train, rather than demanding your own personal AI powered 4 wheel killing machine.

[John Smith 12345]

ginger

lol. lol. lol.

It is so funny seeing you all try to talk about the untalkable. The social conditioning of the last 20 years has really done a great job, hasn't it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Broken

Maybe some humans suffer from the same defective inference as the AI. It would definitely be a tricky research topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial Racism?

Definitely not Intelligence.

[DJV]

Yeah but...

...I wonder what that AI makes of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

[iron]

> Waymo Driver cars to deliver food ordered via its Uber Eats app

Which will be unable to deliver to me on the second floor. If I wanted to go downstairs to get dinner I'd go to the shop rather than ordering takeout.