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Silly Google's Photos app labelled black people as gorillas

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Given that an algorithm has no sense of morality, political correctness, or apathy, I can't really fault Google for hosing this one.

Is it wrong? Yup. Definitely not gorillas.

Would it be just as messed up if it tagged a fat, white, moustachioed, speedo-wielding guy as a walrus? Yup. How about if it tagged an anorexic person (or the average model) as a 'stick figure' or a proctological exam photo as 'middle management?'

I doubt the tagging engine is racist. It made a best guess, and that guess was, unfortunately, wrong. It needs to be corrected, and with luck it won't do the same thing again.

But how do you draw the line? Should it be able to perceive the difference between a person (white or black or any other color) in a gorilla suit, vs a real gorilla? What about at a distance, where features are difficult to distinguish? How could it tell black people from gorillas, or white people from bowling pins, fat people from boulders or skinny people from scarecrows?

Image recognition is built into our brains, and it's a skill most of us use all the time. Since machines don't 'see' the same way we do, there are bound to be issues describing what an image contains to them. Want a good example? Ask a person who was born blind to describe what a fire looks like. Or ask a lifelong deaf person to describe the sound of a distant sporting event's crowd. Or ask Paris to explain simple mathematics.....

That the software can fairly reliably tag images correctly is impressive. That it makes mistakes shows it's faults. If it learns from it's mistakes, it's time to unplug it....

Mine's the one with the bacon, ham, cheese and sardine sarney in the pocket...

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